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Taeyong’s voice comes through the door, calling out the 127 members to be ready to leave. Hansol smiles at Taeil from the other bed, while Taeil quickly puts on a t-shirt. They’re on their way to the saloon, where they’ll be handed their clothes for today’s stage. They’ll be keeping those stage clothes for the fansign in Myeongdong afterwards. Taeil sighs, hoping today he won’t look too ridiculous.
When he opens the door of the bedroom, he almost collides with Taeyong. His heart jumps inside his chest.
Taeyong smiles at him. “Did you have breakfast?”
Taeil shakes his head. “I was going to.”
“We need to hurry,” Taeyong tells him sympathetically. “Take some snacks with you.” He pats Taeil’s arm before heading to the other room.
Taeil’s heart doesn’t calm down.
In the kitchen, Yuta and Ten are laughing at something, lost in their own little world. The way Ten leans into Yuta’s space with a hand on his thigh makes Taeil feel a pang in his chest, longing not for Ten but for someone he could feel that comfortable with. They make it seem so easy.
He grabs some crackers and walks to the door, where he finds Youngho putting on his shoes.
“Hyung!” Youngho greets him with a grin.
Soon, all of the 127 members are ready to go and are being hurried to the elevator. Taeyong is the last to cross the door, Taeil notices. The leader closes the door to Ten’s shouting “Good luck with the animal print!”. Taeyong’s laughter is loud and he shakes his head. When he reaches the elevator, Taeil realizes that he’s been standing there just staring and they’re the last two to go down.
“Taeyong-ah, you want some?” Taeil offers him the crackers.
Smiling, Taeyong takes one out of the packet and starts munching on it. “Thanks, hyung.”
Taeil eats too, but his eyes are focused on Taeyong’s lips, where there are a few crumbs hanging onto the corners of his mouth. When the guy notices him, he raises his eyebrows in question. Taeil shakes his head, smiling and looks down at the packet. From the corner of his eye, he sees Taeyong wipe off his mouth, then dusting off his hand on his pants.
In the van, only Youngho is in the middle seat, so Taeyong and Taeil jump in to join him. There’s little space between the two of them; the touching of their thighs makes Taeil’s heart pick up. He holds the packet of crackers between the two of them, until Youngho snatches it. Taeyong complains, “It’s hyung’s!”, but Taeil shushes him with a hand on his shoulder. The touch is brief and his hand falls down to his lap after it.
Taeil accepts the animal print jacket with a sigh followed by a smile directed at the stylist. The girl pats his shoulder and goes to get Mark’s outfit. Resigned, he puts it on and only after he fixes it on his shoulder, he notices Tayong watching his reflection in the mirror. Taeil lifts an eyebrow in question and the leader walks up to him.
Taeyong looks good; he always does, no matter what he’s wearing or how his hair is styled.
The last crackers is inside the packet. Taeil grabs it quickly and offers it to Taeyong.
The guy shakes his head with a shy smile. “You eat it, hyung.”
With a shrug and fast beating heart, Taeil eats the cracker. Taeyong waits silently until he finishes munching on it. The way he stares at Taeil makes him nervous. There’s something unsaid in the air and Taeil wonders if his own face shows everything he’s been trying to hide.
“Is everything okay, hyung?” Taeyong asks quietly, too quietly in the frenzied rush of the changing room, but Taeil manages to catch the question.
He chokes on the last crumbs of the cracker inside his mouth. Taeyong chuckles patting his back. “Y‒yeah,” he lets out. “Why?”
“You’ve been acting weird lately.” Taeil opens his mouth to retort. “Weirder than usual,” Taeyong tells him with a smile. “If there’s anything you want to talk about, you can talk to me, hyung. Don’t keep all your burdens inside just because you’re the eldest.”
Warmth spreads through Taeil’s body; it’s not embarrassment, it’s fondness. He sees in Taeyong’s furrowed eyebrows why he’s the leader. Taeil smiles softly. “I could say the same thing to you. Don’t keep all your burdens inside just because you’re the leader.”
This time Taeyong laughs openly. From the corner of his eye, Taeil sees Mark staring curiously at them.
“I mean it, though,” Taeyong tells him with one last pat on his shoulder and leaves him to look at himself in the mirror.
Quietly, Taeil heads to the black leather couch where Mark is sitting. His groupmate pats the space next to himself, and that’s where Taeil sits. Close by, Youngho and Yuta are talking loudly and excitedly about something while Doyoung listens and smiles.
“Hyung, you seem absent. Is everything okay?”
It worries Taeil that Mark’s the second one to notice it. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why do you ask?” The pretended nonchalance is a practiced skill.
“You just… You know you can tell me anything, right?”
When Taeil turns to look at him, he no longer sees the young kid that used to train with him a few years ago. Mark’s always been a little bit more mature than his age, but all the hard work in each subunit made him take long strides through adolescence to reach maturity even faster. It’s only when he teases the members and grins openly, widely, happily, that Taeil can see the kid he first met.
Still, Mark is young. Taeil remembers how hard it was for him when he was Mark’s age, around the time he came to terms with who he was. For a moment, he wonders if Mark is going through the same thing, but then he remembers Mark’s comments about one of the new girl groups.
“I know,” Taeil says. “Thank you…” Forming the words in his head to tell Mark how he feels is just as hard as saying them out loud would be.
To distract himself, he looks around and finds Taeyong laughing loudly at something Jaehyun said. He can’t stop himself from sighing and, for a second, he loses control of his own smile; it falters.
“Hyung, when I say anything, I mean anything,” Mark tells him nodding lightly towards Taeyong.
Taeil’s heart beats loudly in his chest, in his ears. The knowing way Mark looks at him scares him. “I…”
“Take your time.” Mark pats his leg.
“I don’t need to tell you anything, do I? You can already tell,” Taeil whispers. His hands are sweaty and he rubs them on his thighs, over the place Mark touched. “Is it obvious?” His voice shakes.
“Not really. I’ve just been paying attention.” Mark smiles. “I can only speak for myself, but… you don’t need to worry. You’re still my favorite eldest hyung.”
“There’s only one ‘eldest’, brat!” Taeil feels a bit lighter when he slaps Mark’s shoulder, and he even laughs.
When they stand to leave the room and go to the stage, the usual nerves are gone. Taeil’s mind keeps replaying Mark’s words over and over again. He looks around at the rest of the members and wonders…
His feet move forward before he can form a question.
The fansign went well. When they reach the dorm again, Taeil’s ears are still ringing with sounds of the screaming crowd. His own heartbeat had drowned it when a fan had brought a yellow post-it note with a question. Who do you think is the most handsome member? Taeil’s eyes threatened to look at his choice. He easily chuckled and wrote Taeil in dark ink before signing the poster and giving it all back to the fan, never forgetting to smile and look her in the eye. After she giggled at his answer, he glanced to his left. Taeyong was getting ready to sign another poster for the fan.
Now, Taeil’s body is asking for a shower and a bed. But all thoughts of that vanish when he sees Yuta plop down on Hansol’s lap on the couch. Maybe it’s a Japanese thing, how easy it is to touch another man and not feel your heart rate pick up nor other people’s eyes on you. Yuta curls his limbs around Hansol, who simply laughs until he notices Taeil watching.
“Hey, hyung. How was it?”
“Hyung had an huge animal print jacket!” Yuta teases him. Taeil shakes his head at him, accepting his words and his carefree smile.
Taeil shuffles his feet away from the common room and reaches his bedroom. Too tired to take a shower, he falls on top of his bed, not even bothering to get under the blankets. He closes his eyes and breathes in, taking in the bad smell of the bedcovers in need of a wash.
The door creaks quietly and light enters the room from the hall. When Taeil opens his eyes, he sees a figure being lighted from behind. He recognizes it.
Silently, Taeyong walks up to Taeil’s bed and sits down.
“Hyung?”
Taeil turns around to look at Taeyong’s face. The light now shines on his profile, making his cheekbones and his nose stand out. No matter where he is, Taeyong looks good; he always looks good.
“Yeah?”
“What has been bothering you lately?” He asks so shyly, like a kid trying to play a leader.
Taeil sits up, takes a deep breath, and can see Taeyong’s face more clearly now. “There are a few things going on in my mind.”
“I can listen to you, if you want to…”
It takes Taeil a few seconds in silence, of him looking down at his lap, to gather the courage. Maybe Taeyong is not the right person he should be talking about this with. It feels like standing on the edge of a cliff, unbalanced.
“I… You know when you guys talk about girls, other idols or not.” Something clogs Taeil’s throat. “I never have something to say…” He looks at Taeyong’s expression.
“Why?” He looks embarrassed, nodding and with his fingers fidgeting in his lap.
Taeil chuckles. “Can you guess why?”
“Yeah, I can… uhm...”
“You don’t have to say anything,” Taeil tells him, placing his hand on Taeyong’s shoulder.
Taeyong’s hand quickly holds it in place and squeezes it. “Idol life… We can’t even date girls openly. We barely look at another idol and suddenly there’s a huge scandal, we’re dating and having a spring wedding.” He sighs, but Taeil laughs, openly.
“Are you… okay with me being gay?”
In the moments it takes Taeyong to reply, Taeil’s heart booms in his ears, pumping blood everywhere, a rush of fear that makes him want to pull back his hand.
Taeyong squeezes his hand again. “Hyung, it’s you. I’m okay with you.” The way he’s looking at Taeil right now is piercing. It’s the way he looks when he’s serious about something.
Relief takes over Taeil’s body; he releases his breath. “Thanks,” he whispers. He feels his eyes pricking, soon tears will be falling.
“I’m okay with all of you, no matter what or who you like.” Taeyong brings down to his lap both of their hands, linked. “Except for your sense of humor sometimes. That is not okay.”
Taeil laughs again and a sob escapes. He lowers his head, not wanting Taeyong to see more than he’s already seen.
Slowly, their hands separate as Taeyong stands. “Hyung, get some rest. If you ever want to talk about this again, I’m here for you.” Taeil looks up at him, and Taeyong’s wearing a fond smile. “You can trust me.”
When he leaves the room, Taeil’s tears wash away some of his fears. There are many things left unsaid, but having Taeyong’s support helps Taeil feel liberated. So, he sobs and cries, hoping Hansol and Ten won’t be coming into the room. He wants this moment alone, for himself, to think again about his friends and how honest Taeil can be to them. Some of them have already proven to be people Taeil can trust, but it’s hard to let go of all of his fears so quickly.
At least, he has Taeyong for now.
There are other things Taeil would like to say to Taeyong, but those will be left for another time.
He wipes his cheeks, before reaching out for a tissue inside the drawer of his bedside table. He cleans his face and lets sleep come to help him prepare for another day. A new day when he’ll feel stronger.