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Taki had been five-years-old when he realized he loved Jo. Or whatever kid-equivalent interpretation it was for him.
Taki is a year younger than both Yuma and Jo, and he also lived a couple streets away (he envied that Yuma and Jo were literal neighbors. He used to wonder what kind of things he missed out on when they played) but that didn’t stop him from befriending the two. He liked how adventurous and brave Yuma was, often pulling them to go look under rocks for bugs. And Jo... sweet, kind, and shy Jo...
Yuma and Taki had different ways of dealing with him. Yuma, being an excellent friend, would always encourage Jo, whether it was to speak louder and make his voice heard, to proudly show everyone his art (which Yuma would be the proudest at, so he says) or to support him in doing what he loves, like that time he tried out for the basketball team in middle school.
The youngest, however, did not treat Jo the same way. See, Jo was this little round thing, with ears that stuck out cutely from the side of his head and the cute clothes he curated, a bright ensemble that always earned the approval and praise from his two friends.
Taki did not view Jo as a hyung (a word he learned from his older brother, Kei-hyung, who used to live in Korea for a brief period of time), and instead viewed him as someone younger. So, if Yuma encouraged Jo to buy ice cream from the nearby store on his own, Taki would instead buy the ice cream for him. If Yuma told Jo that he can brush his own hair (which got a bit tangled during an unfortunate playtime involving mud) Taki would brush it for him. Yuma encouraged Jo to be independent and brave, but Taki wanted to spoil him rotten and never have him lift a finger. Maybe it was because Taki had younger siblings, so being an older brother was second-nature to him. Or maybe it was just because it was Jo.
Jo didn’t mind the treatment. Even if he was older, he did have a tendency of being more inferior, so he let Taki be his older friend. It continued on until it became all that they’ve known, the funny dynamic of an older boy being pampered by his younger friend.
It was up until middle school when Taki still pinched Jo’s cheeks and called him a cute riceball, showing his affection through various cheek squishings and hand-feeding of snacks. When they reached highschool, it became more subtle, like Taki bringing Jo food at lunch time or throwing a thumbs up every time he passed by their classroom. Even as they entered college, he still took care of him, even when their classes were two buildings apart and their lunch periods rarely overlapped. Being a first-born, Taki thinks he never would have stopped pampering Jo, if there wasn’t a truth persistently knocking on his door that he refuses to answer.
But, at some point, he did have to acknowledge what has been there for a while, only strengthened as he matured and learned about the extent of what he feels.
He xxxxx Jo.
Well, he can acknowledge it now, but can maybe name it some other time.
Taki was someone who’s full of hope, who would take a chance to try and make those hopes come true to the best of his ability.
So, he tries to tell Jo how he feels.
He’s subtle about it, though, because can’t say it straight to Jo’s face or else he’ll die. He hasn’t prepared for every scenario that could occur. What if a train passed by and completely honked Taki’s confession into the wind? What if Jo was actually wearing his earphones in and didn’t hear him? What if Jo laughs at him and says No, thank you?
There are endless possibilities in humiliating Taki. So, he controls the narrative, by feeling out Jo’s feelings first before making a much bolder move.
Except, for all Taki xxxxx Jo, he is incredibly dense when it comes to flirting, and listen—Taki has game, alright? He might not have won yet, but he has it. So, the only logical explanation would be that Jo just can’t get the hint, and Taki almost feels like crying.
There was a time where Jo had bought a new sweater, and he looked so good that it stopped Taki in his tracks, gaping at how soft Jo had looked. That was his riceball.
When Jo saw him, he smiled, cheeks full and flushed from the wind, before approaching. “Taki-kun! Good morning.”
“Morning,” croaked the younger one. Then, he clears his throat, and hopes that his fondness bleeds into his tone when he softly says, “You look really pretty, Jo-kun.”
A mood has been set. They’re all alone at the bottom of the stairs. The wind howls around them, supportive of Taki’s advances.
Instead of noticing the atmosphere, Jo beams brighter, like his cheeks could hurt from smiling, and with a cheery voice, says, “Thank you! You look really pretty, too.”
It shatters Taki’s pride.
Then, Jo excuses himself from needing to go to his classes, and leaves. Taki doesn’t move from his spot for ten minutes, trying to absorb the fact that Jo failed to notice his affection.
And it was like that, every time.
During a friendly basketball tournament? Taki tries to impress him with his mad basketball skills.
“Jo-kun,” calls Taki before he registers what he said, and Jo actually turns to him. Taki tries to smile, but his facial muscles feel strained. He thinks he ends up with an awkward imitation of it. “This shot is for you.”
(In true engineering student fashion, Taki even calculates what angle he needs to throw the ball in to land the shot. He’s pretty sure his answer is incorrect.)
He dribbles once, twice. Then, his knees bend a little, and he jumps as he throws the ball towards the hoop, fists clenching with hope.
The ball bounces off of the ring’s edge. Taki turns the deepest red he can as Jo’s lips press together in the most adorable way, fighting the laughter from coming out. Taki appreciates the attempt to salvage his dignity.
During a photoshoot? Taki gets the same results.
They had a few junior friends, Nicholas and Euijoo-hyung, who were photography majors. For a final requirement, they needed to conduct a photoshoot, from choosing the makeup and wardrobe of their models to the artistic liberties of the photoshoot itself. Jo was kind enough to agree to be their model, much to Taki’s joy.
(They wouldn’t be able to coax Taki to model for them even with the promise of Jo reciprocating what Taki feels for him—whatever that unnamed thing might be.)
And, truly, there was no other way to describe it—Jo looked absolutely handsome. The makeup was intense, but fitting with Jo’s features, sharpened as he matured over time.
The others thought Taki was zoning out. Taki knew that Taki wasn’t zoning out, and was just staring at how handsome Jo was.
He had to tell him, and surely, he can’t misinterpret it, right?
“Jo-kun,” breathes Taki quietly, when he’s stepped closer in Jo’s space. He looks up at Jo, and Jo looks down on him, expectant. “You... You look really handsome. This look suits you really well.”
The paralanguage is there. Anyone who watches Taki (who, thankfully, was no one) would be able to discern that the compliment means something more, with how uncharacteristically shy he had become and the proximity he set between them. It’s foolproof.
Jo is, unfortunately...
“Thank you, Taki-kun,” he nods, with that sweet, friendly smile. Taki forces himself to smile back.
And there had been so many more moments like that.
“He really doesn’t see me like that,” moans Taki miserably, lying on a bean bag in Yuma’s dorms until his head hangs off the edge, viewing the world upside down. “He thinks I’m just being friendly. I don’t spend my entire allowance on my friends’ favorite food three times a week, Yuma-kun!”
“Well,” hums Yuma thoughtfully, “In Jo’s defense, you’re friendly with everyone.”
“Yeah, but I don’t call them pretty and awesome and cool and the blank of my life!” Yells Taki, and he rolls over on the bean bag chair just to bury his face in it to muffle his scream. “Maybe I’m really just not meant to be Jo’s soulmate.”
“Did you really just say the word blank out loud?”
“Yes, because it’s still unnamed!”
Whatever that means.
“May I suggest a less... doomed approach?”
Taki lifts his head from the bean bag, trying to catch Yuma in his peripheral vision. He refuses to look at him and admit he’s desperate interested for anything. “I’m listening.”
“You could try telling him directly how you feel.”
The younger lets his head drop against the bean bag again. “You have let me down, Yuma-kun.”
His friend cackles at his dilemma, that evil cat. “I hope you know it won’t be the end of the world if he rejects you.”
“It will be the end of my world—”
“Oh my god,” mutters Yuma, hearing Taki go on and on about how the universe will get sucked into a black hole if he ever verbally expresses his feelings for Jo to Jo, or to the air, or whatever. Yuma doesn’t bother decoding his rants any further to avoid a headache.
Then, his phone chimes. When he looks, it’s Jo with a message.
jojo: hey, could you open the door? i left my keys there
jojo: just exited the elevator
The perfect opportunity presents itself during a time of need.
The door is already unlocked, anyway.
Suddenly, Yuma nods enthusiastically, pretending to have listened to Taki’s complaints of his college professors (What do they have to do with confessing to Jo?) and suddenly interrupts, “Uh-huh. Hey, are you sure you can’t just tell Jo you like him?”
“Oh, how will I even do that?” laughs Taki, though it sounds forced instead of joyous. “I can’t just go, ‘Oh, hey, Jo! Remember me, the guy you’ve known since childhood and have always seen like a brother? Well, guess what! I’m hopelessly, irreparably, and irrevocably in love with you and would die if you told me anything other than ‘I love you, too’’, because he would just laugh at me and say ‘Thank you, Taki-kun!’”
When Taki rolls over, he suddenly freezes. Jo stands in the doorway, mouth open and ears red.
Taki stares at him in horror.
“Oh, my god,” says Yuma softly. “You named it.”
He... He did. He named it, what he feels.
In front of Jo.
“You...” begins Jo. “You like me?”
“Uh, I’m pretty sure he said love—”
Taki bolts out of the room. He even left his bag and all on the floor, uncaring.
He can’t stay in there.
He avoids Jo for four days, and Yuma, too, for good measure. Doesn’t let himself get near the Fine or Performing Arts departments, or the cafeteria, or the student lounge, or the garden—basically any place that any and all students are allowed in.
He doesn’t have a concrete plan. Maybe he’ll avoid Jo and Yuma forever and live in constant fear that he’ll cross paths with them one day. Maybe he’ll switch schools so he could at least feel a bit comforted that he won’t see them. Maybe he could leave the country for good so he doesn’t have to worry at all.
But, all plans must either come to fruition or to an end, and since his plan clearly did not work, the end comes in the form of being left with Jo in the elevator.
Taki enters the elevator from the second floor. Then, at the third floor, a lot of people swarm in, pushing Taki to the back. He uses his phone to pass the time before he reaches the twelfth floor, since the elevator is a bit slow.
At the seventh floor, most of the people get out. At the eighth floor, all of them get off. When Taki looks up, however, he sees that one person has stayed in the elevator.
Jo.
The very Jo he has unknowingly spilled his guts to days ago.
The Jo that he xxxxx.
(Now, it is named, but not acknowledged.)
Jo is looking at him, too, and before he has the opportunity to bolt out of the door, it has already closed, and Jo was near the control panel, so Taki can’t press the button of the nearest floor to get away from the situation.
“Taki-kun,” calls Jo, and Taki refuses to look up from his phone. Maybe if he pretends Jo isn’t there, the time will pass by, even though it has already felt like six months waiting for the twelfth floor. “About what you said...”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he feigns indifference.
“I’ve had a few days to think about your words, and—”
“That’s great, though I don’t know what you’re thinking about, since I didn’t say anything.”
That’s a great plan (????). Gaslighting him into believing that the confession was a weird, collectively-hallucinated fever dream.
The doors open to the eleventh floor.
(Jo’s stop, Taki knows, because he has a class there for the third period.)
Jo doesn’t move immediately. When the doors start to close, he pushes the button to open it again, and sighs.
He walks a couple of steps, blocking the doors from closing, and calls, “Taki-kun.”
He’s still not looking. “Hm?”
There’s an intake of air. Then, softly, “You look really good today.”
Jo walks away. The elevator doors close. And Taki finally looks up from his phone, eyes wide and brain short-circuiting.
I’ve had a few days to think about your words.
(Translation: I now know how you feel about me.)
You look really good today.
(Translation: And now I want you to know how I feel about you.)
Oh. Oh.
...
Oh?
“I must be hearing things,” he rubs tiredly at his eyes, then proceeds to rub at his temples.
He’s exhausted. He doesn’t try to actively ignore Jo and Yuma anymore, but still refuses to go to places he knows they frequent. When he did come across Yuma, they had a normal conversation, with the only anomaly being Yuma asking Have you talked to Jo? and Taki replying with We don’t have anything to talk about, though.
He meets Jo again when Nicholas invites him over to his and Euijoo-hyung’s dorm. He was under the impression that it was only him and Nicholas (and possibly Euijoo-hyung, since he’s the roommate) and being that he hasn’t eaten anything the whole day to better appreciate his hyungs treating him, he doesn’t leave. Just makes sure to sit away the farthest from the one he xxxxx. Except Nicholas hates him and made him sit next to Jo because of... whatever reason. He can’t recall.
Taki doesn’t turn to Jo at all, keeping his focus on the two juniors in front of them, engaging in the conversation so animatedly. And he’s so focused in his conversation with Nicholas that he doesn't notice Jo refilling his bowl with rice and his plate with chicken. His cup with soda, too. It all goes unnoticed by Taki, which Jo is fine with, but not by Euijoo.
Jo stares at him with kind eyes. Euijoo attempts to suppress a smile.
Euijoo and Nicholas, who both have classes early in the morning, agree to let Taki go back to his dorm building as long as Jo is with him and, really, that’s kind of a shitty clause, especially when Taki is trying so hard not to converse with him any further. Reluctantly, he accepts, because he doesn’t want the juniors to walk him home like a child.
It’s silent. Technically, Taki could outsmart the juniors and just run to his dorm building so he leaves Jo behind, but his feet feel heavy, won’t let him run away from what he feels.
Jo hasn’t said anything yet. Has he given up on talking about what Didn’t Happen™?
They reach the door of Taki’s dorm (Taki assumed Jo would leave when Taki entered the building, but he didn’t tell him off, unwilling to ruin the silence) safely. Jo stands a few feet away, watches Taki insert the key in the door knob, before twisting it to confirm it’s open.
He hesitates in going in. Feels like he owes Jo something. An explanation, maybe. Closure. A goodnight. A thank you.
Instead, “You should forget about what I said, Jo-kun.”
Silence. Then, “And if I don’t want to?”
Taki’s grip on the doorknob tightens.
Jo wants to say something else, something more direct. But it’s late, and Taki is about to explode, so he settles with, “I liked spending this evening with you. Goodnight, Taki-kun.”
And he turns to leave, unable to detect the pounding in Taki’s chest, hard and loud and awful.
I liked spending time with you.
(Translation: I can see your heart, and it matches mine. Let me tell you this.)
He didn't sleep that night.
He looks a little awful arriving to his classes with messy hair and sunken eyes, like he got beat up in his dreams that somehow bled into his real-life appearance.
He meets Jo again in the library, while he’s checking out the differential calculus section, hidden a little farther from the tables. He appears behind Taki like some mysterious force (which he kinda is, to Taki) and stays quiet until Taki almost suffers a mini heart attack.
“Yah, don’t sneak up on others like that,” he scolds, and running on no hours of sleep and an Americano he absolutely despised but drank anyway because of the Economy™, it can get verbally ugly.
“Are you okay?” questions Jo, with that gentle voice that could lull Taki to sleep (it in fact, has, once).
“I’m fine,” Taki shoves the book he was about to take back on the shelf and tries to escape the situation, except Jo didn’t let him.
When Taki walks past him, he grabs his hand and twirls in his place the same time he spins Taki around so that they’re face-to-face.
“No,” says Jo, surprisingly stern even with his usual tone. “I’m not letting you run away from me again, from what we have to talk about.”
I sweat to god, if this is about the thing that Didn’t Happen—
“I... I know I miss signals, okay? I know I have trouble separating friendliness from flirting, but I just... I wish you could have been more direct.”
What, so Jo could have rejected him earlier instead of leading Taki on?
“So I could have reciprocated your feelings back sooner.”
Huh.
Taki is sleep deprived. He could be making all of this up by himself.
“I’ve looked up to you since I was a kid,” continues Jo, stepping closer. “You’ve always taken such good care of me that I... I thought something different of it.”
Fuck.
“But that was silly at the time, because I was probably just a little brother to you,” a reminder of their past dynamic, which used to be so sweet and hilarious to Taki. Now, he bears the weight of its repercussions. “But now I know I’m not. And you need to know that you aren’t one for me, too.”
How should he even respond to this?
“Taki-kun,” calls Jo. “Let me say I love you, too.”
It felt like Taki’s heart had stopped beating.
He doesn’t respond, not yet. Jo takes the initiative to move. He leans closer, and with a tentative gaze, presses a chaste kiss on Taki’s lips.
What the hell. What the fuck.
There’s almost no reaction. Jo leans in again, kissing him again, this time staying for more than two seconds. He kisses him again, longer than five seconds, and this time, Taki regains control of his muscles, reciprocating his actions. The next time they kiss again, it’s with Taki’s arms wrapped around Jo’s neck and Jo’s arms around Taki’s waist. He feels himself step back from the surge of Jo’s eagerness, his back hitting the wall, feet half-lifted off the ground.
It feels like a dream. Taki still thinks it’s a figment of his imagination.
When they pull away, breaths mingling with one another, Jo laughs, though it’s a bit small, like he’s nervous. But he is not making fun of Taki.
“Do you...” breathes Jo out. “Do you need more proof?”
Taki swallows. “Just... tell me I’m not dreaming.”
Jo shakes his head, tucking a strand of fallen hair behind the younger’s ear. “You’re not dreaming.”
He confessed to Jo. Jo confessed to him. And it’s not the end of the world.
And that thing he refused to name and acknowledge...
Still a little dazed, Taki has no reason to keep it in anymore, blurting the words he feared most on a random Tuesday, “I love you.”
The residual stun with everything that has happened still resides in Jo, but he’s handling it better than Taki. With a delighted huff, he replies, “I think I love you, too.”
🛒
There’s another friendly basketball competition between the Fine Arts department and the engineering department. This time, Taki sits in the bleachers, with a puff jacket and an almost-red nose.
Yuma is beside him, and together, they cheer for the Fine Arts department, particularly harder when it’s Jo who scores for the team. Predictably, with the strength of Asakura Jo, they win.
Jo runs to where Yuma and Taki were with a grin. “Hey! Did you guys see me? Did I do good?”
“Dude, you were a legend,” exclaims Yuma.
Taki, however, smiles shyly. “You did good, Jo-kun.”
Jo grins so impossibly hard. He leans forward, but hesitates, pulling back a little. Then, he decides fuck it and presses a kiss on Taki’s cheek with the speed of a man who wants to get away with something before bolting down the bleachers to escape Taki’s cry of Hey!
“Aw, you’re blushing!” laughs Yuma, “Damn, you’ve got him wrapped around your finger, huh?”
“Shut up,” rebuts Taki, snorting. Then, he smiles again as he watches Jo walk to the middle of the court, who looks back at Taki.
He points to the ball, and then to the younger.
(Translation: This is for you.)
Then, almost halfway across the ring, Jo catapults the ball from his hands.
It lands perfectly through the hoop, earning a round of applause.
Jo looks back at Taki and smiles.
It’s always been him and no one else.