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If he were a braver man, Nicholas would’ve admitted that something had shifted during Taki’s last birthday celebration.
But it would’ve demanded far too much introspection from him. It would’ve demanded that he analyse the permanent weight lodged in his chest when he thought of twenty-one-year-old Taki, flushed by a third beer, slurring his I love yous, and acting oblivious at sunrise.
Nicholas didn’t have enough time to spare for that minor issue. The flitting gazes, the desperate urge to reach for a hand, a pocket, anything at his disposal, it was all just part of their routine at this point.
And Nicholas was sure that Taki would confess again; he wouldn’t keep his hammering heart quiet for long, as it often threatened to leap out of his chest. But he had that selfish need to keep Taki within reach, not to feed his younger bandmate's delusions, but to earn a front row seat when Taki would inevitably dismiss that childhood crush.
Perhaps the universe had chosen to punish Nicholas for that line of thinking, reckless and uncouth. Perhaps it was a fitting, long-lasting curse.
On the morning they are to fly out from Tokyo to Seoul, Taki vanishes.
Well, he doesn’t disappear. He just gets replaced.
The stranger has a layered haircut grazing his shoulder, three helix piercings, and a conch cuff on his left ear. He’s sporting a loose tank top exposing his ribs as a pyjama. He has Taki’s smile, a cornered shard of the July sun, and his crinkled eyes. He has his laugh, too.
Unlike the rest of them, he doesn’t look horrified, much less surprised.
His eyes won’t leave Nicholas at first, as if Nicholas has summoned him as an early birthday gift.
The stranger is beautiful, but of course, so is Taki.
⚄ ⚀ ⚃
Nicholas was never a good kid who could sit still for hours. When he first met Taki, it was like being handed a distorting mirror and told, see what your parents put up with for years?!
On I-Land, Taki appeared in clothes too bright, with a smile that rivaled the dull sun, like a stuffed toy allowed to step off his shelf for the first time. Nicholas was certain he would win the audience's hearts with his intro alone. He knew Taki would go far —certainly further than Nicholas could with his broken Korean and his tired glare, wielding sarcasm as a pastime.
Yes, Taki was much easier to adore.
Nicholas watched his elimination like a slowed-down wreck, unable to turn the car back around, a burning fire in his belly at Taki's crumbling expression.
Nicholas had never had a younger brother. When he looked at Taki, he felt the pride and the comfort that only family provides, the urge to take him under his wing. Even the things he hated, he learned to tolerate for Taki’s sake. The morning breath hellos, the indiscretion, and the idle kisses.
Rocking someone to sleep for years put Nicholas in that precarious, intimate spot where he learned to recognise the way Taki’s breathing eased when he was drifting off to sleep. All the small, distinct sounds he made while hogging the blankets, all the ways his clammy hands would grab hold of any part Nicholas lent at his disposal.
He couldn’t remember when he had started noticing the boy’s crush. Perhaps in LA or later, during &Audition. Or perhaps Taki had liked him from the start. Sometimes, Nicholas felt like he was the afternoon sun traveling through a room, and Taki, a mere flower left at a windowsill.
Taki’s devotion was childlike, easy to read, and his traitorous heart had made it all evident.
Nicholas was no stranger to misplaced infatuations. He knew they always passed.
Taki had confessed while drunk before, and he had never taken those words back once he sobered up. Still, Nicholas didn't refuse him anything, no embrace, no kisses on his brow, no room nestled in Nicholas’ bed when his own was far too messy to sleep in.
Nicholas allowed it all, certain that, too, would pass.
⚂ ⚁ ⚀
The rest of the team starts calling the stranger 2030Taki in one single word, merging syllables, as if they’re talking about the last model of a robot vacuum cleaner. 2030Taki is hardly bothered by it; he even appears to find it hilarious.
They circle around 2030Taki, members and managers alike. They probe and pinch him like they want to tear apart his fragile outer layer and make sure there are muscles, blood, and bones underneath the smooth skin.
“I’ve known for four years now that I get to spend this week in the past with you, while your Taki gets to spend a week in the future,” 2030Taki explains when they can’t delay their flight further.
He talks exactly as Taki does, Nicholas realises. And then, he hears a traitorous voice reminding him that’s because he’s Taki, you idiot.
They all have pressing questions while they slip out of the building into the cold morning air. Nicholas can’t help but retreat into total silence and observe as the team comes to terms with this new person in a body they have learned to recognise with their eyes closed.
“So you’re only here for a week?” Fuma crosses his arms. He’s leaning away from 2030Taki like he half-fears this version of Taki that can directly look into his eyes.
“Yes, I’ll be gone next Sunday.”
“How did you come here?” Euijoo inquires softly.
“I’m not sure.”
“Why are you here?” Yuma demands, chewing gum obnoxiously loud.
“I guess I’m here to help somehow?” 2030Taki scratches the crown of his head briefly, a gesture so typically Taki that it gives Nicholas whiplash. “Or maybe I’m just here to clean my room, I don’t know…”
No one laughs, though that last remark is admittedly quite funny.
“Is our Taki safe?” Harua asks in a small voice, his brows furrowed.
“Of course, yes,” 2030Taki assures him.
“Are you sure?” Yudai insists.
“I’ve lived this week already,” 2030Taki reminds them with a grin, his hands animated like he’s holding a press conference. “Four years ago, when this happened, I was sent to the future.”
“So you know what will happen four years from now, but you don’t know what will happen here, during this week?” Maki asks.
“Pretty much.” 2030Taki nods. “I’ve tried asking you guys before, so I know nothing horrible happens, but I was never given many details…”
“Can you tell us about the future?” Jo seems the least shaken by this whole ordeal.
He’s the one who spotted 2030Taki first in their dorm’s kitchen, and, still in the haze of sleep, asked him why he was no longer blond. He had only alerted Yudai when it became obvious that 2030Taki didn’t remember where the oven was. They never had an oven.
2030Taki's grin grows impossibly larger as he looks at Jo, and the rest of them line up on the pavement in the early morning’s pinkish light. The vans leading them to the airport await. Yet no one seems ready to part ways with 2030Taki.
“What do you want to know?”
“Are we still together?” Euijoo asks.
“Are we still active?” Yudai adds.
“Yes, and yes,” comes the response. “I don’t think I can say too much, though—”
The stranger cuts himself off as Yudai promptly slips a hand inside the neckline of his shirt to reveal the three moles at the base of his neck forming a triangle.
“It's crazy,” their oldest member utters, “You really are Taki.”
If 2030Taki briefly looked confused by Yudai’s intrusive touch, his face is now dissolving into a sweet, dimpled smile.
“Yeah,” He says, and then, softly, “Hi, K-hyung.”
It seems to be the only confirmation Yudai needs before he crushes the stranger against his chest, and slowly, all the rest of the members approach to take hold of that older version.
Nicholas doesn't.
Half because he isn’t sure he is properly awake yet, and the universe knows not to disturb him before noon. Half because the entire situation is horror film material, and Nicholas certainly doesn’t fuck with the supernatural.
As he settles into the middle row of the van, watching Fuma gather 2030Taki’s hair in a hair tie and hiding it all under a beanie as if it’s a mere issue they can brush over and conceal under a hat, Nicholas wonders what is to be done once the fans catch on. And the fans will catch on. If only because 2030Taki’s face is much more angular, his shoulders much broader, his eyes—
Hearing Taki’s characteristic laugh during the car ride feels outlandish, like a stranger has successfully hijacked his every mannerism.
Nicholas is barely coherent when he drops his head onto the nearest shoulder and whispers, “He kinda freaks me out.”
Yuma’s entire body trembles as he laughs, and any hope Nicholas had of a moment’s respite fades away.
“I bet he does,” Yuma says.
⚀ ⚃ ⚀
It’s only halfway through the security check that Nicholas remembers that Taki had promised him a birthday banana bread. He doubts 2030Taki remembers that four-year-old discussion. He hopes they never have to revisit the last time Nicholas tried to help Taki clean his bedroom. It certainly isn’t worth it.
⚀ ⚂ ⚄
2030Taki being hot isn’t even the most bizarre thing about this whole situation —unlike what Yuma seems to believe, and yet, it remains the one thing Nicholas’ mind constantly circles back to. How hot he is.
Taki has always possessed a smile worth tripping over. He has the entire group wrapped around his finger, and all it takes is a head tilt, a close-lipped curling smile.
This is different. And far more dangerous.
2030Taki has biceps that make even Fuma do a double-take.
It has been a weird kind of tradition at first, to rush to the company’s fitness centre before late-night rehearsals, to exercise there in the hours where Seoul's night sky takes on the most profound shade of blue. They do it, mostly under Fuma’s supervision, because Euijoo has never been able to stay consistent with his gym attendance, or pressured enough to care, and Yudai is simply much more interested in benchpressing the dancer he’s casually dating.
If Taki were here, he would’ve gone home to their dorm and buried himself in switch games or whatever cooking shows he could binge. He would’ve called his mum, too, to check on her as he often did. Sweet Taki wouldn’t be on Hybe’s seventeenth floor, flexing in a shirt Nicholas knows belongs to Fuma.
2030Taki shouldn’t have ever been allowed to step into that room.
Nicholas’ entire world comes to a halt when 2030Taki has the brilliant idea to take off his sweaty tank top, interrupting a series of reps Nicholas has watched far too closely.
“Jesus, you’re kinda ripped,” Maki unhelpfully comments.
And of course, Yuma takes this opportunity to cross the distance and grope 2030Taki’s bicep with an appreciative ahhh. Even Fuma’s eyes are abnormally large for a second, and it usually takes a lot more to make Fuma lose his composure; generally, it involves Euijoo’s minuscule waist or Yudai’s thighs.
Nicholas is in hell.
He could have done without the knowledge that four years from now, Taki would make him look like a scrawny kid. Nicholas is well aware that people change, evolve, even. And yet—
He never imagined that Taki could be destined to be anything but the kid who endlessly trailed after him, his hair constantly ruffled, his earlobes gently tugged, his heart-shaped smile on display.
It is naive of him, of course. Perhaps as naive as Taki searching for traces of everlasting, true love in Nicholas’ gaze.
Nicholas thinks that his torture has come to an end. Until he realises that 2030Taki has only intended for it to begin.
It doesn’t matter that 2030Taki now wears a clean crewneck shirt; he’s also body-rolling in their dance practice room under Yudai’s guidance.
Nicholas is only vaguely aware of Yuma staring at him because he can feel his younger bandmate’s nefarious energy and the incoming migraine every time he sits nearer.
“What?” He asks once he’s done pretending to tie his shoelaces for the umpteenth time.
“You look like you’re going through your worst nightmare,” Yuma comments with a knowing grin, “it’s hilarious…”
Nicholas makes sure that no cameras are recording them and flips him off.
It’s easy to observe how 2030Taki moves; it isn’t all too different from how 2026Taki used to be, but there’s a confidence beneath it that is alien to them all. He exudes ease in a way that seems to be deeply ingrained in each of his movements. From the way he monitors himself but never looks at the mirror for long, to the way he runs a hand through his damp hair and smiles sweetly at their community manager gushing over his growth spur.
When Yudai praises him and ruffles his hair, 2030Taki’s answering grin is devastating, and Nicholas’ attention drifts to it helplessly.
Hell.
“What can you tell us about the future?” Maki asks as he lies on the floor, begging for Harua’s water bottle.
“I don’t think I can tell you anything,” 2030Taki admits. Then, with a shrug, he adds, “We’re happy.”
“That’s all that counts,” Fuma comments like he’s about to launch into a Ted Talk about why focusing on the present matters above all else. Nicholas rolls his eyes in advance.
“Wait,” Maki says, “I wanna know my current hair colour in 2030.”
“Mint green,” 2030Taki replies.
“What? Really?” Maki scowls. “Who the fuck thought it’d be a great idea?”
“You did.”
Yuma laughs like he does when he’s trying to get laid. He sounds like a jackal.
“What?” Maki repeats. Louder, this time.
Euijoo claps his hands together, desperately trying to contain his smile. “Alright, kids, enough pestering 2030Taki.”
They resume practising for two more hours.
Nicholas likes most things about his job. The way Yudai can sniff out the slightest trace of uncoordinated movement a millisecond after it has occurred is downright terrifying. Over time, Nicholas has learned not only to look out for how well he performs but for how the nine of them move as one, a kind of preemptive sixth sense.
Nicholas’s attention is so caught by 2030 Taki’s nearby presence that he realises he’s missed a beat right before Yudai can even open his mouth.
“You’re okay?” Yudai asks when the music is switched off, and 2030Taki winces like he’s pulled a muscle.
Taki always looks like he’s in pain whenever Yudai is the slightest bit dissatisfied with his performance. Nicholas thinks it’s pathological. They all suffer from it.
“It’s been a long time since I performed this,” 2030Taki explains with a grimace. “Sorry, guys!”
“It’s fine,” Nicholas speaks up before one of the leaders can.
Nicholas keeps looking at him afterwards, and he knows Taki, knows him so well; he’s like a wisdom tooth that was never removed. It won’t cause you any pain, a dentist had once told him. Oh, how wrong that was…
Nicholas knows Taki so well that he’s perhaps the least surprised when 2030Taki announces, “I’m just staying behind to make sure I’m ready,” as the other members step out of the practise room.
“Don’t work too hard,” Fuma tells him, ruffling the top of his head absentmindedly.
“Sure,” 2030Taki nods.
“You look so serious when you dance,” Taki had once told him. “Scary?” Nicholas had asked, tasting the Japanese intonation for the first time. “Not scary,” Taki had replied, “Serious.” Nicholas was infinitely grateful. But because he seemingly didn't have the words to express it, Nicholas had just grabbed Taki in a headlock and tickled a series of delighted shrieks out of him.
Looking at 2030Taki's reflection in the mirror, Nicholas despairs of getting a smile, or even a spared glance.
2030Taki doesn’t seem to have registered that Nicholas is the only presence left in the room until he turns back to the mirror. He almost jumps.
“Go on,” Nicholas encourages him with a small smile. And 2030Taki complies.
He points directly at Nicholas and begins isolating his head, his chest, his hips, connecting each movement smoothly. He points at Nicholas again, then at his own chest, home to his beating heart.
“Looking good,” Nicholas says as 2030Taki rolls his hips once more, as a joke. Nicholas laughs, but it comes out squeaky.
If he tries to direct his attention to any part of 2030Taki’s body clinging to his rehearsal attire, he might feel the need to occupy his hands.
“Thanks, I think it’s mainly in there,” 2030Taki punctuates his sentence with a tap to his temple, “I’m just scared to mess up on stage and ruin it all for you.”
“Why would you ruin it for us?” Nicholas frowns. Mistakes happen. Nothing can ever be ruined unless someone gets hurt. That has always been his philosophy.
“Alright, I’ll tell you something that I don’t think I’m supposed to,” 2030Taki admits, “It’s been four years of an inside joke between the eight of you about a supposedly choreo move I missed on this tour. I even searched the internet to find it…”
Nicholas is stunned for a second.
Surely by now, 2030Taki knows that there isn’t a world where the rest of the team doesn’t try to tease him relentlessly. He doubts there’s any mistake to look out for.
“I didn't realise that we'd all been aware of this week in the future,” Nicholas observes out loud.
It makes sense, though.
2030Taki resumes his starting position, “Yup, in 2030, you’ve all already lived this tour with future me. It’s weird, right?”
“Yeah, it’s trippy,” Nicholas agrees. As he looks at 2030Taki’s silhouette, the details of his hands, he finds himself wondering aloud, “So, what am I like in the future?”
He catches 2030Taki’s eyes in the mirror. The brief panic settles in his gaze, so unguarded and so evidently Taki that it brings a smile to Nicholas’ lips.
“You’re—I don’t know how much I can say.”
“Oh, c’mon.”
“I mean, you’re Nico,” 2030Taki says, like it means anything. “You’re an amazing artist. You’ve had a solo comeback recently. Really successful. Your brand is flourishing. That’s—that’s about it.” He looks down at his hands, and there’s an unmistakable flush colouring the tip of his ears. “Everyone is pretty busy these days…”
Nicholas doesn't know how, even at this age, 2030Taki still manages to be this endearing. Perhaps Taki is destined to remain this lovable, irreplaceable piece in &Team. Perhaps Nicholas will never cease finding Taki cute, even fifteen years from now.
“Is Maki’s hair really mint green?” Nicholas asks then, tilting his head.
“Hell no,” 2030Taki throws his head back to laugh, “It’s brown.”
⚁ ⚂ ⚃
2030Taki agrees to answer mundane questions about the future, and the changing room quickly devolves into chaos. Nicholas can’t remember having seen them so charged before a concert. It’s the opening night in Seoul, they should be too stressed out to do anything but munch Fuma’s jellies and repeat vocal warm-up exercises. Instead, when Nicholas finishes recording a TikTok challenge for the third time in the arena’s hallway and steps into the dressing room to get his make-up retouched, he’s greeted with a heated debate.
“Harua asked 2030Taki if he had a partner,” Yuma informs him, contempt dripping from his tone. “Like that’s what he’s preoccupied with...”
“He’s a romantic, leave him be,” Euijoo intervenes before Harua can throw his boba’s straw at Yuma’s head.
Nicholas expects to see more of that fight on stage. These past weeks have been all about that weird, mating ritual they tend to do, bickering one instant and wrapped in each other’s embrace, the next.
“What about you, Juju? Did you ask about your love life?” Nicholas teases, with pursed lips so that another layer of shimmering gloss can be applied there.
“Of course not,” Euijoo sputters out, turning vibrant red.
Yuma and Nicholas cackle in unison.
Yudai, who refused to let 2030Taki out of his sight until he was certain that the Rush choreography was still wired into his brain and has since drunk far more caffeine than should be necessary, even perks up at the sound.
“What did you ask him, Jojo?” Fuma asks the younger bandmate seated beside him on the changing room’s couch.
Jo startles like he’s been resisting falling asleep and has only distantly followed their conversation.
“If my anime show had ended…” Jo looks deeply regretful.
Yuma smacks his own forehead, “You guys are idiots.”
“I’m surprised no one has asked who’s the next prime minister,” Maki comments without lifting his gaze from his phone, while getting his eyebrows filled in.
“Euijoo did,” 2030Taki says, mirroring Maki’s position.
The whole room bursts out laughing again.
“Idiots,” Yuma repeats.
“Oh no, I completely forgot how to play this game,” 2030Taki laments after Maki pumps his fist in the air and sticks out his tongue. “Motherfucker!”
Nicholas is so startled at the sudden disruption that he almost drops his own phone.
To hear Mandarin in their changing room is rare enough; to hear curse words in Mandarin out of the mouth of one of the members who curses the least is baffling.
Nicholas has never heard Taki—his Taki, curse that way in Japanese, unless the situation demanded it.
2030Taki must feel Nicholas’ insistent stare because he lifts his eyes up from his phone and blushes when he meets his gaze.
“Sorry,” 2030Taki says, biting his bottom lip.
Is he sorry for cursing so openly? Nicholas wonders. Does he think he’s offended me?
Oh, if only he knew…
Nicholas continues to stare at his arms exposed through the tank top, his fingers rapidly clicking on his phone screen, the signet silver ring on his index finger, his mouth left hanging open in concentration.
Nicholas knows not to name that fluttering feeling taking root in the pit of his stomach.
This is still Taki, he reminds himself.
⚁ ⚃ ⚅
For the shortest month of the year, Nicholas had held feelings for one Byun Euijoo.
It lasted half of February, and then Nicholas went to fulfill his military service and realised that not voicing certain thoughts could save you the embarrassment of a strained friendship.
Nicholas was well aware that he was mainly motivated by self-preservation; he knew that Euijoo would never return his feelings. Euijoo didn’t regard their relationship the way Nicholas did, and Nicholas had accepted it fairly quickly. He could love Euijoo as if they escaped the same womb, and still accept that they’d make for a disastrous romantic combination.
“Don’t you ever wish you could just freeze time?” Taki had asked him once. “So you’d be happy all the time?”
Wouldn’t you miss feeling other things? Nicholas wondered, but then he remembered Taki hated being sad, or even the slightest hint of discomfort. That the melancholy that pushed Nicholas to scratch a guitar or walk aimlessly for hours wasn’t Taki’s desired state of mind. No, Taki would disappear in the chaos of his room. He would not let anyone in, no matter the incessant knocks on the door.
Nicholas hadn’t understood the need to freeze time until he came back from Taiwan. He feared the trio would have merged into a unit where he wouldn’t find space to squeeze into. He feared they had only missed him half as much as he missed them, seeing their faces in every sunset.
But then, at the airport, he spotted Euijoo’s pink balloon, Yudai’s giraffe built from afar, and Taki’s beaming smile. Nicholas opened his arms and knew he was home.
⚂ ⚄ ⚃
2030Taki makes no mistake during the first night. He seems to glide through each song effortlessly. When the adrenaline rush, caused by 15,000 fans screaming at once, stops operating its magic and the encore comes to an end, he’s still there, running around, waving to every single lunébong the stage lights can’t obstruct. He never stops smiling, and Nicholas finds that, as always when looking at Taki, he can’t stop either.
⚅ ⚁ ⚀
Nicholas has imagined turning twenty-four a lot. It's a pretty age, he thinks. And it gives him a slight edge on Euijoo, which is always fun.
For the past five years, he has been greeted with an armful of Taki on his birthday morning.
It’s a terrible thing to miss at six am, with a hand wrapped around his dick, thinking of motherfucker rolling off 2030Taki’s pretty tongue.
Nicholas has imagined turning twenty-four a lot, not the shameful jerk-off session staining his briefs or his waddling walk of shame to the bathroom, praying that he doesn’t bump into the stranger wearing Taki’s face. Or worse, Euijoo, with the telepathic abilities to read through Nicholas’ perverted mind.
No, Nicholas has imagined turning twenty-four on stage, surrounded by the people he loves most, doing the single thing he can't imagine getting tired of, the one thing his body constantly battles against.
When he emerges freshly showered, Yudai tackles him into a hug and then reminds him that he’s expected to post two TikToks and a selfie before midday.
They have to film content for Nicholas’ birthday. They simply always have to film content.
It isn’t the part of the job that Nicholas dislikes most; the constant hair grooming and calorie intake reports are far more intrusive. And yet, sometimes, as he observes his bandmates’ bruised eyelids and their tearful yawns, he thinks the last thing they need is a camera shoved in their faces.
“Would doing the birthday live with a member help?” Their content strategist asks him during the morning meeting, when it’s become obvious that Nicholas is less than thrilled about the idea of a birthday live after the concert. “I could ask Taki.”
Nicholas almost recoils. Taki isn’t here, he almost answers back. But 2030Taki will have to do.
“I’ll ask him myself…” Nicholas simply answers.
He doesn’t expect to stumble into 2030Taki on the way to the elevators. The ends of his hair curl around his shoulders. He doesn’t look like he’s been in a meeting. He looks like he’s just taken a shower.
“Hey,” Nicholas says.
“Hi Nico,” 2030Taki smiles and wraps his arms around him briefly. “Happy birthday!”
All Nicholas can smell is Euijoo’s spray deodorant and Harua’s expensive coconut shampoo. There must be traces of Taki beneath it all, but Nicholas can’t find them.
“Were you exercising again?” He asks.
2030Taki grunts affirmatively. Nicholas realises that he could lose his train of thought simply by observing him too long. And then he almost bangs his head into the nearest wall.
“You know, that’s so unlike Taki,” he laughs nervously. “I mean–”
“I know what you mean,” 2030Taki waves him off with a chortle, “It’s not something 2026Taki would do.”
Once the elevator doors open, 2030Taki enters first. “I’m preparing for a role.”
“A role?”
“A TV role,” 2030Taki adds.
Nicholas can make out glimpses of the future from all the clues 2030Taki has left him.
“He'd be happy,” Nicholas comments. And he doesn’t think he needs to specify who he’s thinking about. “To know what you've become.”
2030Taki reddens. It’s imperceptible at first under the elevator’s neon lights. And then, it’s all Nicholas can see.
“Twenty-four is a pretty age,” 2030Taki comments suddenly. “Suits you well.”
“I bet twenty-five is even better,” Nicholas responds with a wink.
It sounds like the harmless, playful kind of flirting they’re asked to portray in front of cameras. Except, there’s a manager somewhere in that elevator, but 2030Taki is all Nicholas can see.
“Oh, wait!” 2030Taki exclaims, “I forgot Fuma’s beanie in the practice room yesterday. Can we grab it before we go back home?”
Nicholas isn’t sure what TV role 2030Taki has obtained, but he can spot his acting skills from a mile away. Still, he plays along and agrees. 2030Taki presses the tenth floor button, and Nicholas feels tempted to tell him that they didn’t last rehearse in the tenth floor’s practice rooms.
“I’ll wait for you, here,” Nicholas tells 2030Taki, and sees him freeze.
“Nico,” 2030Taki pouts. “Just come with me.”
“Why would I need to come with you to get Fuma’s beanie?” Nicholas teases.
“You know why… I hate the dark.”
“Still?” Nicholas asks with a dubious grin. He isn’t sure what game they’re playing anymore.
“Still,” 2030Taki holds out his hand. Nicholas has no choice but to take it.
Some things aren’t meant to change, he supposes.
When the light of the practice room switches on, and he’s greeted with his members’ faces, three cameras, and a strawberry shortcake, Nicholas just puts on a smile. It barely wavers as Taki lets go of his hand.
⚀ ⚅ ⚀
That night, Nicholas yanks 2030Taki’s shirt up during Really Crazy, and the crowd’s roar is deafening. Happy birthday to him!
⚅ ⚀ ⚅
They’re fifteen minutes into his birthday Weverse live when Nicholas realises that 2030Taki has barely spoken two words.
For Taki’s standards, it’s the equivalent of sulking.
2030Taki is sandwiched between Yuma and Nicholas. Euijoo sits on Nicholas’ other side, the only one eating the monstrosity of whipped cream they were presented with. Nicholas dislikes strawberry-flavoured things. Taki dislikes sweet things before bed. Yuma simply dislikes cakes.
Nicholas can't help but think they make for a strange quad when it comes to a birthday mukbang. Fuma would've devoured such a cake.
“Is Taki okay?” Euijoo reads a comment out loud. “Taki, please give us a heart!”
2030Taki doesn't simply give one. He gives a full aegyo set that would make any bystander shrivel in cringe. He's lucky to be surrounded by members who find his every mimic adorable.
“Lunés worry that you might be sick,” Nicholas adds a second later after a string of English comments appear.
“I mean, after jumping around and showing off his abs, no wonder he’s exhausted,” Yuma comments, nudging 2030Taki with a toothy grin.
“I’m fine,” 2030Taki replies with a wink, “And I wasn’t showing off my abs, Nico was the one lifting up my shirt.”
Nicholas reaches to grab his thigh playfully and sees 2030Taki flinch away, hitting his knee against the table's foot in the process.
It barely lasts two seconds. It's probably invisible on screen. But Nicholas sees it, and oh, it stings.
“Let's give Nico compliments for his birthday,” Euijoo proposes.
He must think that it'll be enough to dissipate whatever weird vibes he senses in his peripheral vision.
It doesn't.
When 2030Taki finally takes Nicholas’ hands in his, he's unable to hold his gaze for long.
“C'mon, hurry,” Yuma whines.
“Nico is well dressed these days,” is all 2030Taki finds worthy of sharing.
Nicholas isn't sure why it feels like 2030Taki has run him over, but he feels exceptionally terrible when Yuma comments on how their chemistry is the worst he's ever seen.
It's so far from the truth it's insulting.
Taki and Nicholas have always gotten along famously well. They're just off because Taki decided to travel to the future, and 2030Taki suddenly has a thing against physical contact.
When the live is mercifully turned off, and two staff members start cleaning up the plates and the birthday cake, 2030Taki gathers the paper plates and starts taking down the wall decorations.
“Everyone else has asked me questions about the future except you,” 2030Taki tells him.
Nicholas doesn’t know how to respond to that. He shrugs, “I guess I'm just more interested in the present.”
“Oh, it's fine, then.”
Judging from his reaction, Nicholas feels like he's just insulted 2030Taki’s existence, “I mean, the future sounds fun.”
Fun. 2030Taki nods with a small smile. Nicholas’ mind is suddenly filled with far too many embarrassing thoughts. Questions he refuses to verbalise.
Are we all really jacked in the future?
What kind of music am I making? Do you like it? Do you like what I’ve become?
Do you still like me? sounds far too cruel, and Nicholas isn’t sure which one of them he intends to embarrass more with such a question.
2030Taki looks unfairly soft under the studio's yellow lights.
“Happy birthday, Nico,” he says simply, like it's time for them to part ways.
Nicholas expects a hug, but not one this formal. 2030Taki doesn’t linger. Nicholas can’t even rest his chin in the crook of his neck and breathe in his cologne. Something Yudai picked for him ages ago. Nicholas doesn’t even have the time to tell him anything, from ‘thank you’ to ‘could you hold me tighter, please,’ that 2030Taki is already walking out of the room with a distant, “Goodnight.”
Nicholas isn’t used to Taki letting go first. Nicholas isn’t used to having to crane his neck for Taki to look back at him, to seek his attention like an unloved pet.
When he opens his bedroom door, he doesn’t expect Jo to be there, in Nicholas’ bedroom. If it were anyone else, presumably Maki, Nicholas would be furious. But Jo is entirely harmless. If he tells Nicholas that he’s in there to charge his phone or fluff his pillows, Nicholas will believe it.
“I left something for you from Taki,” Jo says instead, pointing at the card left on Nicholas’ bed.
“I just left Taki.” Nicholas frowns.
“No, I mean our—2026Taki. He left you a birthday card in our dorm. I think he’d like for you to read it today.”
Nicholas feels simply too moved for anything more than a quick pat on Jo’s shoulder as he leaves the room.
“Thanks, Jojo,” he croaks out.
Nicholas sits on his bed, dries his palms on his distressed jeans, and grabs the Yayoi Kusama dotted postcard.
Happy birthday, Nico! 24 is a big deal! I hope you get all you wish for. Your birthday cake should be ready by now. Love you
Nicholas stares at the love you. The doodled pig head and the dozen hearts.
He misses him. He misses him like a version of him isn't just two doors away from him.
He doesn't know when his vision becomes blurry, but he furiously wipes the corner of his eyes and carefully abandons the card on his side table. It's ridiculous to mourn a single presence when he just had an entire concert venue chanting his name.
Nicholas wonders if 2026Taki has baked for 2030Nicholas somehow. He can’t fathom the idea that his cake went to someone else, and he doesn't even like banana bread that much.
He remembers 2030Taki carefully avoiding his gaze. He doesn’t need to creep on Twitter to know that half the fandom is now convinced that something is wrong with Taki.
⚂ ⚄ ⚀
Sometimes, looking at Euijoo comforts Nicholas in the idea that he doesn't have the worst taste in men. And sometimes, Nicholas simply wishes to never have to hear him speak again.
He'd let the record show that he had gone to Fuma first and asked to speak to him in all partiality. “Do you mean impartiality?” Fuma had asked. Nicholas had shaken his head, “No, no, I need you to be partial to me.” Fuma’s answering eyebrow raise should've prevented Nicholas from embarrassing himself further.
Yudai is not an option when the matter revolves around Taki, of course.
So, it leaves Nicholas at the foot of Euijoo’s bed while the team's leader is carefully applying bandages to his toe blisters. Nicholas had offered to help because feet don't freak him out. Euijoo had refused because the concept of anyone else touching his feet did.
"Don't you think it's weird that he refused to hold eye contact with me?!" Nicholas complains again.
"I think you're reading too much into it." Euijoo shrugs, "Taki has always been shy."
"Not with me," Nicholas argues back.
“Okay, well, people change,” Euijoo says, “They grow distant sometimes.”
As soon as he says it, Euijoo seems to realise that it’s the worst possible thing he could've said to the chronic overthinker that is Nicholas.
“Fuck, he hates me.”
“Nico, that’s not what I said at all. Taki is–”
“Which one are you talking about?”
“Well, 2030Taki, but it really doesn’t matter because 2030Taki is Taki,” Euijoo says.
Nicholas is barely listening.
“Juju, what do I do?” He all but whimpers.
“You could talk to him like he’s a human being and not a universe’s glitch,” Euijoo replies, like he’s wondering when this leader gig became this exhausting.
“What if he really hates me now?”
“It’s Taki,” Euijoo insists, “Why would Taki ever hate you?”
Years ago, Nicholas had come to the realisation that if he needed to get his feelings hurt and his entire existence read to filth, he only needed to ask Nakakita Yuma. So he goes to find him next.
⚄ ⚃ ⚅
Yuma is unhelpful.
He’s barely coherent, examining his newly painted nails –courtesy of Harua. He looks at Nicholas sprawled across his lap like he wishes to obliterate him with the truth. That’s what he does next, of course.
"Hmmm, how cute, you're using me because your anti-stress ball is busy elsewhere," Yuma says.
He’s referencing the way Harua and 2030Taki went shopping in Hongdae without sparing him a single thought. Nicholas wouldn’t have felt that slight as badly if he weren’t obviously lounging on the couch, barely watching Yuma’s anime, and had asked them twice if they needed someone to carry their shopping bags. That’s how pathetically eager he was to join them.
Yuma isn’t done. “I guess at some point in the future, Taki grew the spine to tell you off for being so annoying.”
“He's the one who always annoys me first!” Nicholas bites back, and then realises it’s the exact reaction Yuma has hoped to elicit.
“Oh, I’m sure, and half the time you annoy him and he dares to retaliate, you’re the one who gets mad.”
“That happened once,” Nicholas says, even though they both know it has happened a little more times. “How–”
“Taki told me that,” Yuma shrugs. “Not this Taki, our Taki, obviously.” He still caresses Nicholas’ forearm, the jagged edges of his scar, as if to soothe him before delivering the fatal blow. “He was mad because you were abusing your hyung privileges.”
“What else did he say?” Nicholas asks, his mouth suddenly too dry.
“He told me he confessed to you,” Yuma says simply, his eyes still riveted on his show. “And you told him to get over it.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Well, that’s what it sounded like to him…”
“He wasn’t even twenty at the time.” When Nicholas thinks of Taki, parts of him can’t reconcile his image with the man who walked out the door, throwing him a cheeky wink when Nicholas offered to join their shopping date. “He was a kid.”
Yuma scoffs as if Nicholas sounds absurd. “You guys are pretty evenly matched when it comes to maturity, no offense.”
“Yeah, I take offense to that,” Nicholas retorts.
Last time Yuma had alluded to Nicholas’ immaturity, Nicholas had ignored him for a week, and because Yuma was well-versed in pettiness, that week had morphed into months.
For his own sake, Nicholas refuses to repeat that episode.
“Did you ask him anything yet?” Nicholas inquires, “About the future.”
“Uh-uh.”
“What did you ask?”
“Something stupid.” Yuma sounds unaffected, but Nicholas knows him too well to fall for that feigned act. It probably relates to whatever sordid thing is going on between Maki, Harua, and him.
Nicholas waits for the ridiculously bright ending theme of Yuma’s gory anime to play before he starts whining again. “What if he's mad at me for something I haven't even done yet?”
“Who?” Yuma frowns.
“Taki.”
“You think Taki could stay mad at you?” Yuma lets out a humourless laugh.
“He’s been avoiding me since the live. Okay, it's only been a day but—”
Yuma smacks his forehead once more, “You’re such an idiot.”
He’s right, in a sense; Nicholas is an idiot.
When they’re heading back to the concert venue in the early afternoon, Yuma places his head on 2030Taki’s shoulder, and they start giggling at something on his phone. Nicholas sinks back into the van’s back row seat and turns up the volume of his headphones so loud that it startles poor Jo seated right beside him.
People change, Euijoo had said. They grow distant sometimes.
Nicholas doesn’t want anything to change. He doesn’t care what the future entails, but he knows he can’t survive the prospect that Taki may never crack his fingers again, or rest his head on his shoulder, or need him in any way.
During soundcheck, Yudai twirls 2030Taki like a ballerina and then collapses into his arms. That, at least, Nicholas realises bitterly, hasn’t changed.
⚀ ⚂ ⚅
They’re in Busan for the remaining two Korean dates when Nicholas gets to observe 2030Taki’s Chrome Hearts ring from up close.
Yuma is supposed to share his bedroom, but he disappears as soon as they’re back from their team dinner under the pretense of letting Harua paint his toes. Nicholas realises it must be a euphemism for fucking when 2030Taki, who was scheduled to share Harua’s room, shows up at the door with a sour expression.
Nicholas lets him air out his grievances as he sits on the edge of the bathtub in the cramped hotel bathroom. He’s too distracted by the toothpaste foam dripping on 2030Taki’s chin, not to wipe it away with his thumb. For a minute, no one speaks. And then, 2030Taki rinses his mouth and complains some more.
Nicholas files his throwaway comment on how, unlike Maki, he doesn’t like being put in a cuck chair, and waits for the moment he registers Nicholas has been patting the single bed pushed right next to his.
2030Taki throws himself on the bed like a wet dog after playtime.
Nicholas has no choice but to scoop him up and get him to lie between his legs to towel dry his hair before he finds himself with water droplets on his pillow.
This is a perfect length of hair, Nicholas realises. Perhaps it’s the haircut he likes most on Taki, that shaggy wolfcut that seems to accentuate the softness of his features. He keeps admiring it while 2030Taki plays with his ring.
“I’ve searched for this ring model online, but it doesn’t exist,” Nicholas says at some point.
The ventilation hasn’t been switched off in the bathroom yet, and there’s a basketball game playing on the room’s TV, but all he registers is the back of 2030Taki against his solar plexus, and the ring shining on his index.
2030Taki escapes his embrace as if burned. “Yeah, it doesn’t exist yet.”
Nicholas doesn’t understand why there’s suddenly so much distance instilled between them. He doesn’t remember having ever seen Taki desert his arms so abruptly.
“Did I give it to you?” He asks, eyes flicking down to 2030Taki’s hands pressed down on the bed covers.
“Is that what you choose to know about the future?”
“What–it’s a harmless question,” Nicholas frowns.
He doesn't expect his expression to make 2030Taki laugh so suddenly.
“Alright, yes,” 2030Taki admits with a small smile, “You made–I mean you bought it for me. For my twenty-fifth birthday, actually.”
In 2030Taki’s reality, his twenty-fifth birthday was only two months away. Nicholas gathers that clue like a precious memory to look forward to.
“Nice,” he says, looking into 2030Taki’s eyes. “That means we’re still close, right?”
2030Taki's smile erodes at the edges. “Sure.”
“I’m asking because I–” Nicholas tries, “I worried that–”
It’s ridiculous. He’s being ridiculous. 2030Taki is here, in a room they’re now sharing because Yuma’s an asshole, and Nicholas is about to accuse him of ignoring him.
“Forget it,” he sighs, and holding out his hand, he asks, “Can I see it?”
2030Taki places the ring in Nicholas’ palm without playful refusal or hesitation.
The ring is gorgeous. From up close, Nicholas notices the blue-gray metal of the tantalum ring with sterling-silver medieval cross details. Instead of a centre stone, the ring possesses a small, cubical bone dice with the number five on display. Taki’s lucky number.
Nicholas wonders what gambling mood inspired his older self to choose this ring to offer to the kid the universe has pushed on his path.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
Nicholas looks up at 2030Taki, “Are we matching?”
It isn't the craziest assumption to be made. Nicholas has matched items with close friends before. Harua has two hats Nicholas has bought. Euijoo, a watch. Maki, a pair of stud earrings. Yuma, a pair of boxers. It doesn't mean anything.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?!” 2030Taki teases. He’s promptly interrupted by a jaw-breaking yawn.
Nicholas remembers a time when Taki was adamant he wasn’t tired, even when his body betrayed how exhausted he was. It would drive Euijoo insane, but Nicholas somehow understood Taki’s refusal to miss a single second of the lives the older members lived.
“Alright, enough chit chat, I'm putting you to bed,” Nicholas tells 2030Taki.
He expects the future version of Taki to argue that he isn’t tired at all, but 2030Taki looks delighted.
“You’re putting me to bed, in your bed and not Yuma’s?”
There are droplets on Yuma’s pillow now. Nicholas doesn’t want 2030Taki to catch a cold. Taki has always been more prone to catching colds.
“Yeah, you're sleeping here," Nicholas insists. “Any objections?”
2030Taki shakes his head, drawing the bed sheets up to his chin. Nicholas feels the urge to smother him with kisses.
“I was going to cook for you,” 2030Taki says around another yawn. “On your birthday night.”
Nicholas knows not to name that fluttering feeling taking root in the pit of his stomach, and yet it clogs his throat.
“But then, there was the live, and I was so tired,” 2030Taki adds after a short pause.
“It's okay,” Nicholas shushes him, patting his head gently like he’s done a thousand times before. Except it feels different this time. Not because Taki has changed, but because Nicholas realises that so has he.
The TV is still playing in the background, and the bathroom’s ventilation is still echoing. Nicholas can’t let anything distract him from 2030Taki’s eyelashes fluttering close.
“What were you going to cook?” He asks quietly, certain he won’t get an answer. “Hmm, Taki?”
He’s about to stand up to get rid of the humid towel and switch off all the lights at once when he hears a small murmur.
“Yixiang.”
Nicholas didn’t know his name could sound that way.
He stops his hand mid-air before he can follow the shadows of eyelashes caressing Taki’s cheekbones, and realises abruptly that if he were to touch 2030Taki, then it would make him real. It would make him merge with all the other Takis. 2020Taki and his yellow jacket two sizes too big, 2025Taki with his lips bitten with love you’s, 2026Taki, hunched over in his disaster bedroom, writing a message on a tear-stained birthday card.
If he touches him, it will force Nicholas to address the stirring pain in his chest. It will add weight to Euijoo’s words, it will make everything Nicholas has carefully avoided true.
It will force him to acknowledge that love can, indeed, grow, and eventually evolve.
Oh, what a terrible revelation to have.
⚃ ⚁ ⚅
On the eve of his twentieth birthday, Taki had lain beside Nicholas on his room's felted wool carpet and nudged his shoulder.
"Nico, I love you," he said, like his rib cage threatened to cave in.
Nicholas, with Taki's bleeding heart squeezed in his palm, only whispered back, "You'll grow out of it."
It had seemed to be the gentle letdown Taki needed at the time.
Taki nodded, and Nicholas, who knew every minute detail of his expression, down to the slow blinks, the telltale sign that he was about to cry, found Taki’s expression eerily blank in that moment. Nicholas didn’t think Taki was worth comforting with a touch. Not on the floor of his newly cleaned room. They were always touching, it’d send the wrong signal; let hope bloom again in Taki’s eyes.
You’ll grow out of it.
And now onto the most terrifying part, what if Taki had done just that?
⚀ ⚄ ⚂
Nicholas fears 2030Taki might not be there when he wakes. He fears he might have dreamed this week entirely. But when he’s gently woken up from his fitful sleep, 2030Taki’s face is there, smiling, inviting.
“Put your shoes on, and let’s go watch the sunrise,” 2030Taki tells him, as if he doesn’t fear Nicholas’ morning wrath.
Nicholas groans into the pillow, but he nods anyway.
As he reluctantly leaves the warmth of his bed and puts his discarded sweater on, a memory emerges in Nicholas’ mind.
Taki turned away from the induction stove in his takoyaki-adorned apron, one spatula in hand, asking Nicholas to taste-test his okonomiyaki recipe. “What's all that?” Nicholas had asked, his fork hovering over the green stuff sprinkled on top. “Scallions,” Taki had replied with a long, suffering sigh. “It looks like leeks,” Nicholas had complained. Taki had just grabbed the plate and offered it to Jo instead. Nicholas sulked for an entire evening afterwards.
“We’re not telling the managers?” Nicholas asks as 2030Taki grabs their hotel key card and his phone.
“We’ll worry about that later,” 2030Taki smiles.
Nicholas finds that he doesn’t care half as much as he ought to. He thinks of 2020Taki, too scared to get caught exchanging a few too many words with Nicholas, persuaded that the I-Land cameras would reveal his great deception; that he was a kid sent to a foreign country who had clung to other foreign kids to survive.
“I look like I’ve just crawled out of bed,” Nicholas complains, staring at his reflection in the elevator’s mirror, trying to tame his wild hair.
2030Taki looks impossibly fond. “You look good, don’t worry about it.”
He reaches out a hand, and then, as if suddenly remembering that Nicholas doesn’t allow anyone to touch his hair, retracts his hand sheepishly.
I’d let you, Nicholas thinks. I’d let you touch my hair if you promised to be gentle.
At some point, between the hotel and the Haeundae beach, 2030Taki grabs his hand, and Nicholas feels infinitely more at ease. Busan awakes, but there are barely any people outside. Nicholas hides behind his face mask and buries his naked toes in the cold sand. The blood-red sun rises above the sea, and Nicholas no longer cares about failing to reach his quota of a minimum of ten hours of sleep.
It’s a beautiful sight.
“Do you remember what you wrote to me on my birthday card?” Nicholas asks, tugging 2030Taki by the hand until the waves no longer simply lick their toes.
2030Taki follows, his ring digging into Nicholas’ own index.
“You wrote: I hope you get all you wish for,” Nicholas continues when 2030Taki keeps quiet.
2030Taki smiles at him, like he suddenly remembers. “So what did you wish for?”
⚃ ⚄ ⚅
Nicholas searches for 2030Taki’s eyes across the stage, but he's already entertaining the two maknaes. When it’s time for his ending ment, Nicholas can’t help but turn fully towards him. They’ve always been standing next to each other on stage. How not to believe in fate, then?
“Taki is the prettiest,” Nicholas says, half because he wishes to atone for the sins that got 2030Taki chewed by management that morning, half because it’s the truth. “Don’t you agree?”
The Busan crowd does.
“No, Nico is,” 2030Taki refutes sweetly.
Distantly, Nicholas can hear Maki grumbling into his mic, “What is wrong with these two?”
Nicholas wishes he knew.
⚀ ⚀ ⚁
They return to Japan late at night.
No one is speaking over the hum of the car and Jo's confusing playlist. Most of the kids are sleeping. Except for Maki, who has his phone's brightness turned to the max.
Nicholas smiles at the sight of Jo pressed into 2030Taki's side. Nicholas isn’t sure there's a safer shoulder to rest on. Taki has always been everyone's favourite. Hell, Taki is even his big sister's favourite.
Their three dorms are in the same building in a quiet residential area, and Nicholas has missed his bed the past few days. It’s perhaps the thing he misses most on tour, which makes him sound a bit unhinged during interviews.
In theory, Nicholas knows that Taki’s room is a mess right now. And he expects 2030Taki to just accept Yudai’s offer to take his bed tonight instead of stepping into the minefield. But 2030Taki seems determined to clean up the mess.
“Imagine how happy he’ll be to get back to a clean room,” 2030Taki says.
He talks of 2026Taki like he’s a younger brother. Perhaps that’s how it feels at times.
When Euijoo asks if he needs any help, 2030Taki urges the group’s leader to go to bed. He repeats his sentence to Yudai, Jo, and Fuma.
Nicholas doesn’t think of asking. He just shows up at the doorway.
"So," Nicholas clears his throat. "You're leaving soon, right?"
2030Taki, momentarily stumped on how to proceed about a towel that seems fused with the carpet, barely looks back at Nicholas. "Uh?"
"Tomorrow is Sunday. You said you’d be gone by Sunday."
"Oh, right," 2030Taki nods and passes him something to shoot into the trash bag.
“Did you forget about it?”
“I'm having fun…” 2030Taki shrugs with a small smile, as he’s literally sorting out his younger self’s laundry into two piles. “I almost forgot I don't belong here.”
“You belong here,” Nicholas argues.
2030Taki’s smile grows larger. And yet, there’s something in his eyes that Nicholas can’t place.
“Don't you miss your Taki?!”
You're Taki, Nicholas means to say.
“I did,” he admits instead. “But you're not that different from him. You still boost everyone's morale and look after us. You still shine on stage and make the world a little bit sunnier.”
2030Taki drops a questionable-looking shirt on his lap and looks up at Nicholas as if he’s encountering him for the first time. Nicholas refuses to believe that it’s the first time he’s told Taki this, in any lives where their paths end up crossing.
“I have a question,” Nicholas says, and sits cross-legged in the spot where he can see the carpeted floor. “Are you happy?”
“Yeah, I already told you. We—”
“Not we, you.” Nicholas interrupts. “Taki, I'm asking you.”
2030Taki looks surprised for a second. His expression dims for an instant, like he hasn't thought about it for a while.
“Yes, I'm very happy,” he says in the end.
He resumes sniffing clothes and throwing them away. He has started collecting empty cans. Nicholas should be horrified and disgusted. He isn’t a neat freak the way Maki or Fuma are, but he still values a clean habitat. Nicholas also knows how Taki functions. How things tend to pile up, and he works on them on his own time, in his own unachievable timeline. There's no mess too big for Nicholas to refuse to clean.
Watching 2030Taki reassures him, not because the older version of Taki seems to have everything figured out, but he looks to make a genuine effort to correct that behaviour, to leave the world a better space in his wake.
“In Busan, you asked what I wished for,” Nicholas suddenly says.
“The birthday wish,” 2030Taki nods. “I remember.”
“I’d like to ask another question.”
“That’s it?” 2030Taki giggles, “Sure, why not?!”
It feels a bit like standing at the edge of a precipice. It feels a lot like a second chance.
”Are we happy?” Nicholas asks.
“Nico, all your questions are the same...”
“No, they're not.” Nicholas shakes his head. “I don't mean we as in &team. You and I, are we happy?”
2030Taki looks like a deer caught in headlights. Nicholas would mock his expression if he wasn’t two seconds away from throwing up.
“You—”
“I mean,” Nicholas adds, “I must have done something right at some point to let myself have you.”
The room is silent.
Nicholas awaits the verdict. Either he’s right, and every piece of the puzzle slowly falls into place, or he’s even more stupid than Yuma gives him credit for.
When 2030Taki smiles next, he looks relieved. “Yes, we're happy.”
Nicholas feels his heart racing in his chest.
"But it doesn't have to mean anything to you right now," 2030Taki adds abruptly, like he’s trying to manage Nicholas’ expectations.
"Except that we're inevitable," Nicholas tells him.
“Nico—”
“Kiss me.”
2030Taki doesn’t even argue then. He just pushes away the trash bag, the pile of clothes, the empty biscuit packets. He crosses the short distance from Nicholas on his knees and kisses him.
The understanding is instantaneous.
Nicholas doesn’t remember having ever kissed someone and felt like his entire body sighed in relief.
2030Taki tastes like Fuma’s radioactive-coloured gummies. He smells like Harua’s expensive coconut-scented shampoo. He’s made for kissing. The floor is sticky, but Nicholas doesn’t fucking care. The entire building could be in flames for all he knows, but he will not let 2030Taki step outside his embrace.
“Are you still there?” 2030Taki murmurs against his mouth, his hands are in Nicholas’ hair. And Nicholas doesn’t even care.
"Wow," Nicholas utters.
His vision is clearer than a moment earlier. It feels like the first time he ever went to the optician and realised people walked around seeing the world in HD.
"That good, uh?" 2030Taki cocks his head to the side, and Nicholas just has to steal another kiss from his smug face.
He wants everything 2030Taki is willing to give him. He’ll give him everything, he’s certain of it. He’ll make him feel so good—
"Hey, hey, Nico, we're stopping here..." 2030Taki pushes him away gently because, unlike Nicholas, he isn’t sick in the head.
"You sure?" Nicholas mouths at his neck, his hands still bunched up in Taki’s stupid Back To Life shirt.
"Yeah,” 2030Taki says firmly, but Nicholas can still taste his smile against his cheek. “I'm not fucking you in here. There's plenty of that ahead of us."
"I can’t believe I thought you were ignoring me."
"No, I was desperately trying to keep my hands to myself," 2030Taki sighs. He frowns when he spots Nicholas’ expression. "You find that funny?"
Nicholas does. He really is such an idiot.
"I complained to everyone. I was dying of jealousy."
2030Taki kisses him once more. "You should know, by now, how impossible it is to ignore you."
They get the room done before sunrise. Or at least, 2030Taki does. At some point, Nicholas is barely awake anymore, and 2030Taki has to drag him out of there and beg him to go to his own bed.
"You’ll be gone when I wake up,” Nicholas complains.
He isn’t sure what he looks like, but judging from 2030Taki’s amused expression, he must look like a mess.
“Well, I was always meant to leave…”
"Do you have to?"Nicholas insists.
"How else will you get your Taki back?" 2030Taki asks with a small smile.
How else will I get back to my Nico, he seems to say.
“I’m scared I'll mess it all up,” Nicholas admits.
“You won’t. This,” 2030Taki points at his ring, “This is the proof that you won’t.”
"Taki, I—"
"Don't," 2030Taki shushes him. "Don't tell me without telling him first."
Nicholas feels like his heart will explode if he looks at 2030Taki any longer. But he's right. Nicholas has his Taki’s return to look forward to.
“Bye, Nico,” 2030Taki tells him as he closes Taki’s bedroom door. “See you soon…”
⚂ ⚁ ⚀
Nicholas is woken up by Harua’s shrilling scream.
“Taki is back!”
Taki is back. Nicholas gets himself out of bed in record time. It’s ridiculous. He can only be thankful that none of the younger members had to see him tripping over his slippers and rushing towards the door.
When Nicholas sees him, he realises a dozen things at once. Taki is wearing the same shirt his older version appeared in, merch that none of them have ever seen. His roots are getting dark brown as if no hair stylists had the mind to touch them up while he was away. His eyes smile, and his mouth stretches wide as Harua recounts the last few days.
Nicholas isn't sure that he's ever looked at Taki for this long. He isn't sure he ever allowed himself to.
“I missed you,” Harua tells Taki as they hug. “You were all big and muscular, it wasn’t the same!”
“No, it wasn’t,” Yudai adds.
He's been leaning into the bedroom doorframe like he isn't sure he can interrupt the 05's reunion.
Taki resolves the issue himself, looking right at the oldest member with a trembling smile and opening his arms to him next.
“Please don’t cry,” Taki says, and Yudai's fingers keep pressing into the meat of his flushed cheek, a ripe fruit prone to bruises.
“I’m not,” Yudai lies. “I’m just really happy to see you so small…”
“Did he clean my room?” Taki asks, sitting down heavily on his mattress.
“Yup, with Nico,” Harua responds.
“He looked good,” Maki admits with a dangerous glint in his eyes.
“Really hot,” Yuma contributes.
“Yuma,” Fuma sighs.
“What? You all thought the same thing…”
Nicholas quietly plans on smothering him in his sleep.
“Especially Nico!” Maki adds, joining Yuma’s raucous laughter.
“I’ll kill you both,” Nicholas promises.
“Thank you,” Taki tells Nicholas.
He seems to be talking about the room cleanup. What else is there for him to be thankful about?
Nicholas steps closer until there's no other choice but for them to melt into each other's embrace.
“Welcome back,” Nicholas whispers, and he punctuates it with a soft peck to Taki’s temple. Something affectionate that doesn't immediately scream ‘I almost sucked off a future version of you in this very room.’
Nicholas will wait. It can wait.
⚀ ⚀ ⚁
Turns out, it can't wait.
Taki has been back for a day when Nicholas corners him.
The rain just won't stop outside Taki’s window. Tokyo’s rainy season should last another few weeks. Nicholas will only then dare to step outside without an umbrella, or a fear of the abrupt downpours. He already has a café date planned for Taki and him. He just needs his younger member to go along with it.
He can’t wait.
"How was the future?" Nicholas asks, standing immobile in the doorway.
"So fun," Taki responds, rearranging his plushies on his bed.
Nicholas knows that tactic by now. He also knows that if he wants to have that discussion with Taki, he might first need to stop his hands from fidgeting.
From behind, Nicholas can only see honey blond hair sticking out around his ear, and the outline of a dimple. That perhaps characterises Taki’s profile perfectly.
"What did you do with older me?" Nicholas insists.
It's torture, he realises, to know what Taki’s lips taste like, to know what the future has in store for them, and yet, being forced to display that fake timid camaraderie when all Nicholas wants is to court him.
Taki has been patient. Why can't Nicholas be patient, too? Why can't he wait another birthday or two?
Because it'd kill you, his mind supplies. Because he's what you've wished for.
Taki sits on his bed and pats the vacant spot next to him for Nicholas to sit in.
"We talked a lot, he showed me some music he worked on, took me shopping… I made him dinner for his birthday, I don’t think it was half as good as what my older self has made—"
Nicholas realises that he doesn’t care about the future. Not when Taki is here, only a touch away. Real. He grabs Taki’s hand in his before he can think about the implications of such a gesture now.
"Did he kiss you?" Nicholas asks, and he tries to quiet the jealousy seeping through his tone.
"Uh, yeah," Taki admits, a pleased flush spreading from his neck to his ears. "He did."
Before Nicholas can mentally curse his future self, Taki adds, "He kissed me on the cheek, said he couldn't do anything else, because he owed you..."
"Oh," is all Nicholas can respond.
The bed now seems entirely too small. Taki straightens up, turning slightly to face Nicholas, their fingers still interlaced, their skin still feverish.
"Did my older self—?"
"Yeah," Nicholas nods.
He thinks of 2030Taki briefly, how he kissed him like it was the most natural thing for him to do.
"That asshole…” Taki pouts.
One week with older Nicholas is apparently enough for him to come back with a whole new range of insults. Nicholas would find it endearing if he weren’t so painfully turned on.
"Actually, it might be my fault. I asked him to kiss me."
Taki sighs but doesn't say anything.
"Taki, I'm sorry."
Taki frowns, "For what?"
"For not telling you sooner.” Nicholas fears he might get sick if he finishes this sentence. He fears he might go crazy if he doesn't. “I thought that your feelings would change with time. So I refused to see how I felt at all… Until this week.”
“Because of him?”
2030Taki materialises in Nicholas’ mind. Beautiful. Just like the 2026Taki he gets to touch.
“Because of you,” Nicholas replies. “I was already falling for you before he showed up.”
“Also, he's quite literally you,” he adds teasingly.
Taki still refuses to look at him, his eyes trained on their hands, always touching.
Nicholas sighs. “I'm sorry if you felt like I wasn't taking your words seriously.”
“You treated those love confessions like they were bomb threats,” Taki observes aloud. There's the smallest hint of a smile on his lips.
“I was scared,” Nicholas argues with a smile of his own.
The bedroom is quiet. The drizzle hasn’t yet stopped. Nicholas expects sunshine any second now. A clear-skyed rainbow over the deep puddles.
"Tell me to wait, and I'll wait. Even if it takes us a month, a year to get there,” Nicholas assures him. “Just know that I want you.”
"You're so dramatic,” Taki laughs, “And I'm sick of waiting.”
Nicholas thinks the rain stops when Taki grabs his face and leans in.
⚄ ⚄ ⚄
Nicholas registers his smell first. It's the perfume he gifted Taki two birthdays ago. Something named after an obscure Haiku poem.
“Is it weird that I want to smell like you?” Taki had once asked him. Nicholas couldn't tell him, then, that he fantasized about tattooing Taki's handprint on his ass. Smell was perhaps the tamest way he ever thought to claim his boyfriend publicly.
Nicholas registers the notes of citrus but only cracks one eye open once he feels a kiss laid on his neck, and subconsciously bares his throat to receive more.
He blindly pats the vacant space on the couch, mutters, “Come here.”
Taki does. The couch dips under his weight, and he settles on top of Nicholas instead. He's heavier than he was a day ago, but he was only twenty-one a day ago.
“Did you miss me?” Taki whispers, each kiss more insistent.
Nicholas smiles. Taki should know, by now, that Nicholas misses him every second that he's not close by.
Still, he misses nothing quite like rattling his lover.
“Not really. 2026Taki was way more fun…”
“Fuck off,” Taki says, trying to leave Nicholas’ tight embrace as if he'll ever be allowed to.
“He let me touch his cheeks—”
“I'm a grown man, Nico, you can't—ah!” Taki bats Nicholas’ wandering hands away.
“He cooked for me—”
“Unhand me, I cook for you all the time!”
“He was just so so sweet and eager—”
“Oh yeah, I bet he was eager…” Taki comments, rolling his eyes.
“He told me he loved me.”
“Motherfucker.”
“Oh, that,” Nicholas giggles, and he presses apologetic kisses to Taki's jaw, his sideburns. “That, I missed.”
Taki whines for a proper kiss, and Nicholas loses his sense of priorities.
“Have I said it yet today?” Nicholas asks him after he's sampled every inch of his skin. “That I love you.”
Taki makes a sound that is half moan, half laugh. He’s been toying with Nicholas’ waistband for entirely too long.
“Keep going, you might reach my count one day...”
A moment from now, someone will type their apartment's front door code, and Jo will burst through it and gasp at the sight of their half-naked bodies intertwined on the couch. Maki will scream, “Taki’s back!” and the rest of the team will enter the living room, begging them to get dressed already.
A moment from now, Taki will reluctantly leave his side with a self-conscious smile and get swooped up in everyone else's arms. So Nicholas chooses to revel in the present.
“I love you,” He reminds Taki.
He kisses his ring finger, promises himself another four years before he gets on one knee in Taipei's morning light.
Only if he can wait that long.
“I love you.” Nicholas never tires of repeating.
Taki's laugh tickles the shell of his ear.
“Say it again.”