Work Text:
“You know a lot of people, right?”
Beomgyu looks up from his book at the sudden question. He blinks at his best friend silently, head tilting as Kai continues pacing around his bedroom. It’s not unusual for Kai to ask random questions, for him to say little things that have no substance, for him to pester Beomgyu with his thoughts. But it’s not like Beomgyu has any real complaints about it.
This is the way Kai has been– ever since he had sat beside Beomgyu over ten years ago and started talking about how he thinks it’s really cool that the clouds can look like other things.
So Beomgyu lowers his book slightly, just to hover above his nose. He takes a breath in, the smell of the pages grounding him. He looks at Kai over the book, eyes wide and curious.
“What?”
“Well–” Kai stops suddenly. His long dark hair falls into his face and Beomgyu holds his breath for a moment. “You have more friends than me.”
Beomgyu exhales slowly. He frowns, head tilting further to the side. “Do I?”
Kai nods instantly and then begins pacing around the room again. “Yeah– I mean I don’t really have anyone besides you.”
Despite the way his heartbeat speeds up at the words, Beomgyu’s voice is calm with practice. “You have Taehyun,” he fills in weakly.
Kai shrugs his shoulders non-committedly, his face pulling into an expression where he seems to be considering the prospect. And then he sighs, his entire body slouching with the breath. Beomgyu stares at him blatantly.
“I guess,” he mumbles back, looking at Beomgyu easily. “He’s more of a– bandmate, really.”
Beomgyu nods his head slowly, eyes naturally drifting back to the book. He reads the words, he reads a sentence, eyes moving along the page but his brain is still stuck on Kai’s fidgety movements.
“You’re my only friend,” Beomgyu tells Kai.
These are the words he always tells Kai whenever the man seems to forget that there is no one else who knows Beomgyu as well as he does. No one else who sat beside Beomgyu when he fell on his knees and grazed them against the school playground. No one else who ate with Beomgyu when all he wanted was to spend his lunchtimes in silence, reading a book. No one else who cried with Beomgyu when he lost his mother, holding him together and reminding him that she’s still with Beomgyu wherever he goes.
“Okay,” Kai sighs again, too focussed on himself to notice the way Beomgyu’s grip on the book tightens slightly as he takes a seat on the bed. Beomgyu watches him intently.
“What is it?” Beomgyu mutters then. Reluctantly, he closes the book, placing it beside himself and sitting up in his bed to talk to Kai properly.
“I don’t know,” Kai answers pathetically. He looks down at his lap in thought before looking at Beomgyu plainly. “Would you ever set me up with one of your friends?”
The question is surprising. Beomgyu stares at Kai, unable to hide the shock on his face. He is pretty used to Kai’s crazy questions, the unfathomable thoughts in his head that force Beomgyu to think just so he can come up with an answer worth giving back. In all the years he has known Kai, of all the things Kai has ever asked him, Beomgyu never expected Kai to come up with this.
“What?”
Kai seems to turn shy at Beomgyu’s blunt question. The hesitancy to answer is almost visibly radiating off of him. But still, this is Kai, so as confidently as he can, he nods his head at Beomgyu.
“Yeah,” he says simply. “Just– well, it’d be nice to have someone to bring to our shows, you know,” Kai finishes softly.
Beomgyu blinks at him again. The urge to remind Kai that he brings Beomgyu to all his shows takes over him, but he doesn’t say anything at all. Beomgyu has had a very long time to learn how to stop the impulse of saying something like that to Kai. Something that crazy, something that risky, something that could ruin more than ten years of friendship. So he doesn’t say anything at all. Not for the first few minutes, at least.
“Oh,” Beomgyu finally says. Kai looks at him curiously, and Beomgyu realises quickly that he must say something else before Kai starts to question his surprise. “Would– would you even be interested in the people I know?”
The question is dangerous, really, because Beomgyu had convinced himself years ago that Kai would not ever want to date his bookworm best friend. Kai who plays the electric guitar and leads the vocals for an underground band would never want to date someone who is struggling through an English Literature degree. Beomgyu drilled that belief into his brain before he even started his degree. So he holds his breath, admittedly a little bit scared of Kai’s answer.
He shrugs his shoulders again. “I don’t know,” he mumbles again. “I mean– I’ve only ever dated other musicians, maybe I need a change.”
Beomgyu snorts before he can help it, looking away from Kai for a second.
“Come on,” Kai playfully argues, a small smile on his face at Beomgyu’s reaction. “I did date them!”
“Dating is more than sleeping with the same person for barely a month, Kai-yah,” Beomgyu tells him simply. Kai gives him an unimpressed glare, rolling his eyes softly and shaking his head.
“I’m serious,” he tells Beomgyu. “Would you?”
Would he?
Beomgyu pretends to be thinking it over, but really he is trying to hide the way his heart is breaking inside his chest. The fact that Kai is willing to date someone Beomgyu knows falls upon him like heavy raindrops, leaving his limbs heavy with the realisation that Kai really will never consider Beomgyu that way. He bites his lip, mostly to stop the mild fear that it may start quivering before he can help it, and he clears his throat to stop his eyes from welling up automatically.
See, the thing is, Beomgyu is irreparably in love with Kai.
Ever since the boy had wormed his way into Beomgyu’s life, ever since he made Beomgyu watch the clouds with him, ever since he patched up each one of his clumsy wounds, ever since he held Beomgyu together as he cried over the loss of his mother. Beomgyu has been in love with his best friend for as long as he can remember.
And as much as he could have told Kai how he feels, the timing has just never been quite right. The first time was when Beomgyu had decided he is sure of what he feels for Kai, after a good two years of grasping the emotions inside him. It was when they were seventeen and both wondering what to do for prom dates, Beomgyu was going to play one of Kai’s favourite songs in the background as he simply said the words I like you to Kai. But then Kai beat him to it and said he got asked by someone in his biology class.
Whatever. Beomgyu could let one prom go.
The second time was after they graduated, at the end of summer before university started. He figured he could confess to Kai, and if it all went wrong then he’d just transfer to a school which meant he had to leave their hometown. And that night Kai had cried and opened up to Beomgyu, revealing how relieved he was that Beomgyu was staying at a local university– especially since Kai was not going to any university.
Beomgyu buried the words in his heart that night, letting them go because he figured having Kai as a friend is better than not having Kai at all.
The most recent time he tried to confess was the one that hurt the most.
It was maybe some point during his first year of university, in the middle of exam season. Beomgyu hadn’t planned it that time, he was just so peaceful to be sitting with Kai– the stress of exams disappearing as soon as his best friend had arrived with take-out to force Beomgyu to take a study break.
He wanted to, and he was ready to tell Kai that he loves him– more than a friend. But then Kai had turned his neck and the words is that a hickey tumbled out of Beomgyu’s mouth before he could stop them.
So that was how Beomgyu found out his best friend seems to be very comfortable in a no strings attached situation, something Beomgyu could never do. He figured from that moment on, it was time to face the fact that Kai wouldn’t ever get with someone like Beomgyu, let alone Beomgyu .
Until now, that is.
“Beomgyu?”
He looks up from his knees, eyes wide with being broken out of his thoughts. Kai smiles at him, almost nervous for a response.
“Oh,” Beomgyu repeats uselessly. He nods his head slowly, “okay,” he says quietly.
“Okay?”
“I’ll– I’ll try and see if anyone I know wants to go on a date with you,” Beomgyu relents easily.
The nervous smile turns into this bright, wide thing that makes Beomgyu feel dizzy. He lifts the book up again, ignoring Kai’s stupid grin and his dumb praises of Beomgyu being the best friend ever. He pretends to be focusing on the book again, but really the words on the paper seem to hold no meaning anymore and Beomgyu finds them blurring into one thick line as he tries to piece his heart back together without Kai noticing.
The only person who knows about it is Soobin.
Beomgyu is really good at hiding it, he thinks. He actually had to admit it to Soobin so he would stop coming up with other ridiculous theories of Beomgyu’s love life. But even then, it had not gone beyond anything other than Beomgyu telling him he is in love with Kai but Kai does not know. And then Soobin asked the basic questions: since when, why, how? Soobin doesn’t really know Kai that well– they have interacted and have hung out because of Beomgyu many times over the past two years Beomgyu has known Soobin, but that’s it.
Sometimes Beomgyu relies on the idea that if Kai ever finds out about his feelings, if he ever learns that Beomgyu’s in love with him and he is so deeply repulsed, at least Beomgyu would still have Soobin.
He never really wanted to tell anyone about his crush on Kai, though. Beomgyu likes to think of it as the one thing he’ll take to the grave if he never gets to tell Kai. Although there have been a couple of instances when he wonders if Kai’s mother can tell how he feels. When he stays the night or when he has dinner at their house and he looks at Kai for a moment too long, talks to him in a voice too soft. Still, even if Kai’s mother did know, Beomgyu knows that she would never tell Kai without talking to Beomgyu first.
“Do you have anyone in mind right now?” Kai asks.
Beomgyu raises an eyebrow, looking at his best friend again. “No?”
“Oh,” Kai nods his head. “Okay.”
“Is–” Beomgyu freezes up. “Is there someone specific?”
There’s a beat of silence and Beomgyu tries not to lose his mind to it.
“No,” Kai admits in a blank voice. Beomgyu lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“What… what is your– type?” Beomgyu forces the question out, far too awkward and far too painful.
Kai frowns, thinking about it carefully. “Someone kind,” he says softly, eyes melting into an imaginative gaze. “Someone who would genuinely care about my day– and they have to be someone who likes music.”
“Of course,” Beomgyu smiles without thinking.
“Maybe– maybe someone tall,” Kai thinks out loud.
“Taller than you?”
“Mm,” Kai pulls a face. “Same height, maybe a bit shorter… someone who could probably deal with the fact I say a million words a minute.”
“There’s no one on this Earth that can deal with that, Kai-yah,” Beomgyu reminds him jokingly.
Kai chucks him a weak glare. “Someone I can have real conversations with, then,” he settles.
“Why do you want to date all of a sudden?” Beomgyu cannot help asking. He frowns, trying to work out what Kai wants from this.
There’s another stretch of silence, and Beomgyu finds himself leaning forward with anticipation. There’s an unreadable look on Kai’s face, something between blank and thoughtful, something Beomgyu cannot say he has seen before.
“I don’t know,” Kai says quietly, not quite looking Beomgyu in the eyes. “I… I just want to find someone, I guess.”
Beomgyu cannot argue with that answer. He can, unfortunately, scream inside his head and wonder why that someone isn’t him, but he cannot deny Kai’s desire to find someone serious. Beomgyu just wishes Kai wouldn’t have to look so far when he can find it right in front of him. And yet, he looks so hopeful– so trusting to let Beomgyu help him find someone he also cannot find it in him to deny Kai of his request.
It’s a few days later when Beomgyu wonders how the hell he agreed to setting Kai up with people he knows.
Beomgyu has just explained the situation to Soobin, his friend laughing at Beomgyu’s predicament as they talk about it over lunch. Or rather, Soobin has lunch and Beomgyu sits opposite him– he doesn’t have much of an appetite as he pursues the idea of Kai dating anyone Beomgyu has ever spoken to. He sulks about it, sinking into the canteen chair and pouting ridiculously.
“Why don’t you set him up with yourself?” Soobin considers.
Beomgyu considers throwing some food in his face.
“I can’t do that,” he says instead. Soobin pulls a face but he doesn’t say anything more.
“Why did you agree if it was just going to make you depressed?”
“I–” Beomgyu sighs shortly. “It was a– heat of the moment thing, he was just looking at me so hopefully, I couldn’t say no.”
“Why not?”
“It would’ve broken his heart,” Beomgyu mumbles. “Kai’s– he is a lot more emotional than he seems, okay? He was probably already scared to even ask me for this favour.”
“What about you?” Soobin asks gently, his eyes so serious as he looks at Beomgyu.
He shrinks in on himself, avoiding Soobin’s gaze. “What about me?”
“Is it not breaking your heart?”
Beomgyu cannot deny it. They both know it’s upsetting him, but he shakes his head regardless. It’s more of a shake to rid himself of useless thoughts than it is to deny Soobin’s question.
“If he’s happy, I’m happy,” he tells Soobin.
It’s quiet then, and Beomgyu gathers the courage to take a bite of his sandwich. He thinks about it, thinks about how he would even go about the task of setting Kai up on dates. Beomgyu has never really been the kind of person who dates– he doesn’t talk to people on a deep level, really. Besides Kai, Soobin knows him best, and even then, Soobin barely knows half of what Kai does. All the people he knows are mere acquaintances. No one he can call a real friend, despite what Kai thinks.
Beomgyu has also never actually dated someone before. He had been asked out once in high school, a couple more times in university, but none of them were anything he was really interested in. Not when Beomgyu’s heart belongs to someone else, there would be no point in agreeing to go out with any of them. His first and only kiss was with a girl when he was fourteen; it’s how Beomgyu realised he likes boys, so it’s clear to see how that one ended.
Kai never really told Beomgyu what he was into, because he had dated both girls and boys in high school. He just sort of pointed out whoever he liked and Beomgyu would feel dejected that Kai liked a girl, and he’d feel a pathetic sliver of hope when Kai pointed out a guy. It was all just really stupid, Beomgyu thinks to himself whenever he remembers that part of their life. But now he thinks about it, and he wonders if Kai has a preference between girls or guys, something he finds too awkward to just ask over text.
It’s something Beomgyu finds too awkward to ask in general, which is even more stupid.
He purses his lips, thinking about the last person Kai was with. Some guy from another band he had met at some gig, Beomgyu never really took in the details of the people Kai fooled around it. Simply because Beomgyu would never be like those people, he’d never be caught dead in distressed t-shirts, or sweaters with unnecessary holes in them, thick eyeliner on his eyes– that’s not Beomgyu. No, he is always the sore thumb in the crowd of Kai’s shows, in his glasses and cardigans, his tired eyes and his brain filled with quotes needed for his next essay.
Beomgyu thinks about the girls he knows; a little unsettled with the idea that they’d all happily go on a date with a singer like Kai. He puts the sandwich down again, suddenly at a loss with his appetite once more. Soobin stares at him obviously, an eyebrow raised in silent interrogation.
“Are you seriously thinking about it right now?”
Beomgyu scowls. “What else am I supposed to do?”
“Maybe you should just tell him you had a change of heart,” Soobin suggests, his choice of words only stinging Beomgyu slightly. “Like– just lie and say none of your friends fit his criteria, or whatever.”
Soobin says it all so easily. Like none of it means anything, and Beomgyu wishes it all meant nothing but that’s not the truth. So he stares at Beomgyu again, somewhat hesitant and he speaks up again.
“What if you just set him up on really bad dates?” Soobin himself doesn’t seem so sure of the idea, but then Beomgyu looks at him curiously. “Nothing too awful,” he placates. “Just enough that Kai gives up and asks you to stop,” he suggests.
Beomgyu wonders if it’s too mean. If this would hurt Kai more than he’d mean it to, but he must admit it feels far too tempting to go down this route. He thinks about it carefully, seriously taking in the possible repercussions of giving Kai a handful of bad dates– it’s not like Beomgyu knows any horrible people. They’d just be people who have nothing in common with Kai, just enough discomfort for Kai to give up, like Soobin said.
And that’s how Beomgyu finds himself showing Kai a photo of this girl from his creative writing class, asking if Kai would be interested in seeing her Saturday night. It’s only been two weeks since Kai asked Beomgyu to set him up, and frankly he thought it might be too soon– then he thought the sooner he does it, the sooner it ends. So he asked a girl he has spoken to a handful of times if she’s into singers– to which she said yes, and to Kai’s photo she agreed so long as he says yes too.
Kai takes the phone from Beomgyu, looking at her photo for a second. Beomgyu, obviously, does not have any idea what it means to be attracted to a girl, and he doesn’t really have a good grasp on what Kai’s female type is. But he thinks the girl from his class is at least pretty– that much should be a universal understanding, right? So he waits silently for Kai’s response, wondering if Kai is into pretty girls like this.
It’s only a little bit demeaning, Beomgyu thinks to himself. He is in no way dainty and delicate looking like the girl in the photo. He isn’t petite like her– Beomgyu is quite manly, and he finds himself gulping at the heartbreaking thought that maybe he just simply isn’t Kai’s physical type. She has a soft face, her eyes soft and her features not at all sharp like Beomgyu’s. He supposes at the end of the day, he is not a woman, so there’s that much of a difference. But it doesn’t stop him from wondering whether Kai thinks Beomgyu is attractive– not for the first time in his sad life.
“Hm,” Kai hums thoughtfully. Beomgyu waits, nervous for no reason. “What’s her name?”
“Jaehee,” Beomgyu answers. “She’s in my creative writing class. I had to do a presentation with her a few weeks ago.”
Kai is quiet again, not so much looking at Beomgyu’s phone anymore. He hovers over Kai’s shoulder staring at her picture as he waits for what feels like forever.
“Alright,” Kai nods his head. “Saturday?”
Beomgyu nods his head, taking his phone back to share her contact details with Kai.
“Yeah,” he says. “I told her you’d get in touch,” Beomgyu mumbles.
It’s weird, Beomgyu decides. It’s weird to see Kai get so excited over a date with someone else, but Beomgyu silently sits on his bed and watches Kai get up to look at himself in the mirror. He frowns, running his fingers through his hair.
“Do you think I should cut my hair for the date? Is it too messy like this?”
“I think it looks nice,” Beomgyu says without thinking. He makes eye contact with Kai through the mirror, fumbling for something else to say before it gets weird. “I mean– it goes with your rockstar image and all,” he mutters stupidly.
“What’s Jaehee like?” Kai asks.
Beomgyu swallows the lump in his throat. He looks away, lying back on his bed and finding his head on Kai’s jacket. It smells strongly of Kai’s perfume, something a lot heavier than the floral scents Beomgyu wears, but it smells like Kai, and that much is enough comfort to battle the weird cracking of his heart.
“She’s nice,” Beomgyu responds vaguely. He turns to his side, halfway to burying his face in Kai’s jacket. But he doesn’t, because that would be too weird. “Um… she likes a lot of Dickens novels,” he explains. “So if she starts quoting a tale of two cities, don’t get scared.”
“Is that the one about good times and bad times?”
Beomgyu smiles into Kai’s jacket. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” he corrects gently.
“Yeah, that’s what I said.”
“That’s not even the best quote from the book,” Beomgyu says then, frowning slightly. He stares up at his ceiling, not even caring for the way Kai turns back to look at him in amusement.
“What is?”
Beomgyu stays quiet for a second, wondering if it’s too obvious to say it to Kai. He takes a deep breath.
“There is prodigious strength in sorrow and despair,” he tells Kai softly, lolling his head to the side so he can look him in the eyes. “That’s the better quote from the book.”
Kai stares at Beomgyu, both of them silent before Kai clears his throat suddenly.
“That’s pretty depressing, Beom-ah.”
He pulls a face. “What about your songs?” He argues weakly. “Those are depressing, too.”
“Do you really think so?” Kai asks genuinely. Beomgyu pouts at him, if he weren’t lying down he’d probably shrug his shoulders childishly. “I thought– they’re meant to be, like, love songs.”
“I guess it depends on everyone’s point of view,” Beomgyu explains to Kai. “Songs are like literature in that sense.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Kai agrees simply. He turns back to the mirror, back to inspecting his features as if it’ll change anything. “You, uh, you don’t like that Dickens guy, right?”
Beomgyu looks at the back of Kai, slightly perplexed by the question.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Kai mumbles absentmindedly. “I feel like you haven’t mentioned him before.”
“I have,” Beomgyu says then, watching how Kai pauses in surprise. He looks back at Beomgyu over his shoulder, eyes wide at the sudden coldness in his voice. Beomgyu clears his throat as Kai turns back around. “I have a collection of his classics, Kai-yah.”
“Oh,” Kai says quietly. “I didn’t know that.”
“It’s not like I made a point about it,” Beomgyu reassures him. “My dad got it for me before I started university.”
“I feel like I should have known that,” Kai says.
Beomgyu makes a sound of contemplation. “He’s not even my favourite author, or anything.”
“No,” Kai agrees. “I know that much,” he mumbles, a colour to his voice that Beomgyu isn’t able to decipher.
So he stays quiet, not sure what else he can say to Kai. It’s not like Beomgyu expected Kai to know that information, not in that much detail at least, he doesn’t care. But it seems to have bothered Kai and Beomgyu feels the need to let Kai know that it’s okay.
“It– it’s nothing important,” Beomgyu mutters quietly, mildly unsettled by the dark look on Kai’s face. “Really, don’t worry about it.”
Saturday comes around far too quickly for Beomgyu’s comfort. It takes him until Kai has texted that he’s arrived at the restaurant and is waiting for Jaehee that Beomgyu considers the possibility of it all backfiring. He sits at his desk, attempting to get an early start on this assignment due at the end of the month. It was supposed to be a good distraction for the next few hours, until Kai messages to say that the date is over. And yet Beomgyu finds himself staring forlornly at the laptop screen, his bedroom dark and the screen too bright.
It hurts his eyes more than he’d like to admit, but he cannot find it in him to look away. If he looks away, he’d probably pick up his phone, and then he’d probably fall down the rabbit hole of looking at his texts with Kai. Beomgyu gnaws on his lip, building up all the hypothetical situations where Kai actually ends up liking Jaehee, or he thinks one bad date isn’t enough and still decides on a second. So he does pick up his phone, but he calls Soobin instead.
Beomgyu blinks at the bright screen as he listens to the low dialling tone rumbling through his ear. He waits silently, trying not to be aware of how agitated he feels.
“Gyu?”
“What if he likes her anyways?” Beomgyu asks, eyes closing in patheticness.
“What?”
“Kai–” he clarifies, voice less frazzled now. “What if the date isn’t bad?”
“Oh,” Soobin says softly, almost as if he is cooing at Beomgyu’s crippling insecurities. He grits his teeth, not wanting to be swayed by his emotions and start crying over the phone to Soobin. “I guess… I guess you can’t help that.”
“Right,” he says, a little bit sour over that fact.
“Hasn’t Kai dated before?” Soobin asks then, “like, aren’t you already used to seeing him with others?”
“Sort of?” Beomgyu isn’t quite sure what Kai did with the other people he was seeing. All Beomgyu knows is that none of them were ever introduced with a label as serious as boyfriend or girlfriend. “It was– I never questioned it,” he admits quietly.
“What about you?” Soobin asks.
The question surprises Beomgyu. “What?”
“Maybe it’s time you try dating, Gyu. If you’re not gonna confess–”
“I don’t… I’m not–” Beomgyu stops himself short.
It’s not the first time Soobin has asked him about trying to get over Kai. Actually, Soobin suggests it a lot more often than Beomgyu would like him to. It was probably the first time Beomgyu had cried in front of Soobin about it, one late night where he was stressed with deadlines and Kai had forgotten something because he was with someone else. And it’s stupid now when Beomgyu thinks about it because he can’t even remember what it was that Kai forgot. All he remembers was crying in Soobin’s dorm room over a cold slice of pizza.
“I know,” Soobin answers.
“I feel so stupid,” he tells Soobin.
“I know,” Soobin says. “But you aren’t, trust me.”
“He was so excited for the date,” Beomgyu says dejectedly. “Like– genuinely interested in her. I feel so–”
“Heartbroken?”
“But I don’t want to be,” Beomgyu practically whines. “I should want Kai to be happy, right? Even if it’s not with me…”
“You do want that,” Soobin reminds him. “It doesn’t mean it sucks any less for you, Beomgyu.”
“It really sucks,” Beomgyu sighs tiredly.
“How long has he been on the date?”
Beomgyu looks at his desk clock. “Like an hour, probably.”
“What have you been doing?”
“Trying to work on an assignment,” he mumbles.
Soobin snorts over the phone. “How’s that going?”
“It’s not,” Beomgyu groans, leaning back in his chair and stretching.
He stays on the phone with Soobin for the rest of the evening. His laptop screen slowly darkens with time until it fades into a black screen and Beomgyu is left in the darkness of his bedroom. He has somehow made his way into bed, sitting under his covers to keep talking to his friend more comfortably. Soobin is talking about this open class he is taking, one that Beomgyu isn’t doing. He is grateful for the mindless chatter, it stops him from going insane over an essay or over Kai being on a date with his classmate.
Beomgyu doesn’t know what time it is, just that he is yawning in the middle of Soobin’s sentence and his room is barely visible. His bedroom door cracks open as Beomgyu smacks his lips together sleepily, he frowns at the light spilling into his room. Beomgyu is ready to tell his dad that he doesn’t need dinner when he gets a look at the person by his door and the words die on his tongue. He stares at Kai, mouth hanging open in stupid surprise.
Hastily, Beomgyu tells Soobin he will talk to him tomorrow and hangs up. Before he can ask Kai what’s wrong, he sneaks a glance at the time on his phone– shocked to find it is significantly past the time they started the call. Kai steps inside Beomgyu’s room, shutting the door behind him and taking a seat on Beomgyu’s bed.
He isn’t in the nice shirt and jeans from earlier, and his hair isn’t styled anymore. He looks more like himself, Beomgyu thinks to himself. Silently, Kai stretches himself over the bed and lies down beside Beomgyu. It’s quiet and dark in the room, Beomgyu lies on his back, his shoulder pressed into Kai’s as they both breathe softly in the silence.
“How was the date?” Beomgyu asks reluctantly, voice far too soft to be nonchalant.
Kai inhales deeply. “She talks a lot,” he says simply.
Beomgyu makes a noise of confusion, turning to frown at Kai, unsure if he can see him in the darkness. He can make out the rough shapes of Kai’s face from the dim moonlight breaking through his window blinds, eyes tracing the features and finding himself at a loss of words once again at how beautiful Kai is.
He doesn’t turn back to face Beomgyu. “Yeah,” he says. “She– she really talks a lot,” Kai whispers.
“Is that… a bad thing?” Beomgyu asks, careful to not let the hope shine through his voice. He backtracks quickly, in case Kai can pick up on it. “I mean– you said someone to keep up with your conversation, so I thought…”
“No, I know,” Kai reassures Beomgyu, almost as if he doesn’t want to make Beomgyu feel bad. That alone makes Beomgyu feel awful. “But she– she didn’t seem to really care about me? I don’t know,” Kai sounds almost frustrated, unable to explain himself and Beomgyu stares at him in wonder. He has never seen Kai like this before. “Maybe she and I just aren’t a good match.”
“Oh,” Beomgyu whispers. He swallows down the thick guilt that swirls with the sickening hope. “What– what does that mean?”
“Hm?” Kai looks at Beomgyu, eyes completely unfazed. “Well, do you know anyone else? Maybe– maybe this time you could bring them to my show next weekend? And since you’d be there it might be less awkward, too…”
Beomgyu stares at Kai. He holds back the desire to laugh in Kai’s face, to scoff or to scream and ask Kai why he is so oblivious. No, instead all Beomgyu does is make a non-committing humming sound as he flops onto his back again.
“Maybe,” he repeats Kai’s word vaguely. There’s a beat of silence again, and Beomgyu purses his lips before speaking again. “Did she communicate in book quotes?”
“Oh my god, so many,” Kai groans, laughing at the memory of it.
Beomgyu cannot help the smile creeping onto his own face, far too aware of how odd the girl talks. He gives in to the feeling of Kai rumbling with laughter beside him, his own shoulders shaking with quiet laughter, shaking his head. Kai rolls over to rest his head against Beomgyu’s shoulder, unaware of how he steals Beomgyu’s last ability to think with the action. He tries not to be too stiff, too awkward as Kai cuddles into him naturally.
“It’s been a long night,” Kai sighs sleepily, voice drifting away into a slurry mumble.
Beomgyu nods his head in agreement, even though Kai cannot see him. He sighs slowly, it’s going to be a long night, indeed, he agrees silently.
Sometimes, Beomgyu wonders what it takes for Kai to realise he doesn’t act like a normal best friend around Beomgyu. He already knows he doesn’t, but Beomgyu is very self-aware of how his feelings for Kai seep into every action towards the other. Kai, on the other hand, is far too oblivious that sometimes it really trips Beomgyu into thinking too deeply. Like when he remembers quotes that Beomgyu had told him offhandedly– purposefully repeating them incorrectly because he knows Beomgyu will just sit there and explain the context to him. Or when he sends demos of his music to Beomgyu despite constantly claiming he’d never show a work in progress to anyone.
Like now, when he lies beside Beomgyu in Kai’s back garden, the two of them squinting up at the sky and Kai starts singing to himself softly.
The sun is warm and pretty damaging to Beomgyu’s eyes, but he opts to look right into it because the blinding sensation reminds him he is alive. He blinks rapidly to stop the watering of his eyes, to stop the sick thoughts from eating him whole, to stop himself from inevitably giving it away to Kai because he wasn’t actually looking at the clouds.
He tries to focus on the white floating images in the sky, always at a loss for whatever Kai sees in them. Still, he tries. Beomgyu sighs softly, trying so hard to come up with something simply because Kai hasn’t spoken in a while and he’s starting to wonder what the point of everything is. Beomgyu wracks his brain for something– anything– the measliest thing he could offer, because it’ll get Kai talking and when Kai talks everything is better.
“That one looks like a boat,” Kai says suddenly.
Beomgyu frowns at the sky, trying to work out which one Kai means.
To be honest, it could be any of them. To Beomgyu, they all look the same. He hums in agreement, eyes drifting back to the sun without much thought.
“The one next to it looks like a– puppy?” Kai doesn’t sound too sure. “Maybe a rabbit?”
“Those are pretty differently shaped animals.”
Kai huffs, nudging his shoulder into Beomgyu’s weakly. He sits up then, hair messed up from the grass but he pays it no mind. Beomgyu squints at Kai, his face coming in to block the burning sun. The sudden shroud of darkness hurts Beomgyu’s eyes a bit, but he is glad that he cannot see Kai’s face properly. Not until he blinks some more times, the focus coming back to him just in time to stare at the amused smile on Kai’s face.
“You’re not even looking at the clouds.”
Beomgyu shakes his head. “I am,” he lies. “There are multiple clouds, Kai-yah.”
“None of them look like a boat, Beomgyu,” Kai reveals.
“It’s subjective,” Beomgyu defends, hoping the heat on his face can be blamed on the sunshine.
The amused smile doesn’t budge, and Kai’s eyes shine brighter than the blinding sun. It makes Beomgyu’s heart seize up into something painful, something familiar with the way it takes his ability to breathe. It takes over him and leaves him wondering if Kai would prefer to do this with someone he is dating– if Kai would be like this.
Would he urge his partner to watch the clouds with him? Would he sing a song softly while they watch the clouds? Would he call them out endearingly when they’re not really paying attention? Would Kai be the same as Beomgyu knows him, or is he actually different when he is in a relationship?
Beomgyu doesn’t think he would be any different. But Beomgyu also doesn’t imagine himself in a relationship with someone other than Kai– so there would be no need to think he’d be any different. Maybe he’d become a little more shy, a little more reserved, simply because his love for Kai has been hidden for so long that if it ever became real, Beomgyu would never be able to believe it.
Kai only looks at him plainly, eyes soft and smile slipping down into something a lot more genuine. Something so soft and gentle it settles above Beomgyu’s heart like a reminder that sometimes, the world can be as simple as the two of them. Like thousands of years before them didn’t exist and thousands of years after them will not be, the world is just Beomgyu and Kai, right now. The world is the two of them in Kai’s garden, the sun shining down on them and Kai smiling at Beomgyu like he is the most precious thing he’s ever seen.
Beomgyu’s world is this. His world is the moments with Kai where he can pretend for himself that Kai loves him back the same way, it’s the moments where Kai softly sings to Beomgyu and it’s the moments where Beomgyu randomly quotes some famous author to Kai because the other will never understand what the words really mean.
“Half agony, half hope,” he whispers to Kai, eyes sliding away to look at the clouds.
“Hm?” Kai questions simply.
Beomgyu looks at the white blobs in the sky, eyes closing and smiling gently.
“Everything is subjective,” Beomgyu tries to explain. “Everyone sees things differently.”
“Oh,” Kai says, voice light. He nudges Beomgyu, waiting for him to open his eyes before he scrunches his nose for Beomgyu to see. “Half agony, half hope,” he repeats. “I kinda get that.”
Beomgyu stares right at Kai, bitterly wondering just how much Kai gets it.
“Half agony,” he mutters so quietly. “Half hope.” I love you.
The venues Kai’s band plays at are always these dark, somewhat dingy sort of places that Beomgyu has never really liked the atmosphere of so much. Even now, when he sits between Taehyun’s boyfriend and Soobin, Beomgyu still feels uncomfortable. He knows it’s obvious, too, with the way he sits rigidly and barely says a word in the conversation. Mostly, neither of them pay him any mind, simply letting Beomgyu be Beomgyu. Sometimes Soobin will ask him a direct question, and Taehyun’s boyfriend will ask if he wants a drink.
Beomgyu denies the offer every time.
“Are you sure?” Yeonjun – Taehyun’s boyfriend – asks. He looks almost concerned for Beomgyu’s wellbeing and it’s honestly laughable beneath all the seriousness causing him to feel so bleak.
Yeonjun is a nice guy. Beomgyu doesn’t hang out with him much unless Kai is present too, but he still knows he is a decent person. He definitely fits in with the whole rockstar look more than Beomgyu does. Yeonjun has these blonde stripes in his hair that Beomgyu cannot fathom, this eccentric dress sense that Beomgyu could never pull off. When he had first met him, Beomgyu felt an immature pang of jealousy that he’d never look the part like Yeonjun does– and that he’d never really visually fit in with Kai the way Yeonjun does with Taehyun.
He shakes his head kindly, certain that he does not want anything to drink or eat.
Beomgyu is far too antsy to stomach anything. He looks around, trying to act natural– trying to act normal about the fact that he had invited someone from his class here. He looks down at the table now, his stare focussing on the cracks in the wood. The wear and tear of the table that he now realises is actually a bit sticky. Beomgyu lifts his hands off the table, placing them on his lap instead.
Soobin nudges him then, eyes dark with worry. His face pulls into a frown, the small pout of his lips opening as he dares to ask Beomgyu what is wrong.
He doesn’t really get the chance, though, because Beomgyu’s attention is taken by the person who had just walked into the bar. Beomgyu sits up quickly, waving a hand around to get their attention, only dropping his arm when the person is halfway to their table. Yeonjun stares at the stranger, eyes wide but still inviting like always. Beomgyu stares at them too, a little intimidated by how nicely they clean up. Soobin looks absolutely perplexed.
Jinyoung doesn’t usually carry himself with this confident flair.
Beomgyu knows Jinyoung to be this pretty reserved, sometimes blunt guy. Well– that’s what he was like when Beomgyu first met him, at least. Really, Jinyoung is just shy. He doesn’t tend to get into baseless conversations and rarely does he start them first. Beomgyu figured he’d be the perfect guy to bring to a bar where Kai is going to perform.
What Beomgyu didn’t anticipate was that Jinyoung would show up dressed like– like this.
The man looks like a perfect part of this scene. His clothes are baggy and excessive, just the right balance of dressed up and casual. His hair is slightly messy, but in the way where it looks intentionally done, and Beomgyu’s jaw drops open at the sight of his painted nails when he pushes a strand out of his eyes. He clears his throat then, not having the strength to dwell on the fact that Jinyoung has done an exceptional job with the dark kohl around his eyes.
“Hi,” Jinyoung says with a shy smile. He looks at Beomgyu mostly, only bowing at Yeonjun and taking a seat beside Soobin.
Soobin, who is utterly confused.
“Jinyoung?”
Beomgyu perks up then, coming back to reality.
“Jinyoung,” he says, looking at Yeonjun and Soobin. “I invited him,” Beomgyu explains vaguely. His eyes meet Soobin’s then, hoping the newfound panic in them isn’t glaringly obvious. He turns to Yeonjun again. “Jinyoung this is Yeonjun, he’s dating the bassist of the band.”
“Oh,” Jinyoung smiles at Yeonjun. “Cool. So, how did you hear of these guys again?”
There’s a click of silence between them that is only slightly awkward. Beomgyu clears his throat, actively ignoring Soobin’s dead glare and Yeonjun’s innocent confusion.
“I know the lead singer,” he answers. It’s an embarrassingly watered down understatement, but no one jumps to correct Beomgyu, so he leaves it be. Jinyoung only nods his head simply in response.
There’s not much time for the awkwardness to simmer over, because the lights suddenly focus on the small stage and Beomgyu feels his world spin on its axis. Kai always looks unbelievably good when he is on stage. The golden spotlight always does him incredible justice. It makes his smile glow a million times more than it usually does and it highlights the captivating beauty on his face so much that Beomgyu would never be able to find the right words to describe it even if he scoured every last romance novel on this Earth.
And then Kai steps up to the microphone and sings. His voice is loud. Kai sings with so much passion and power it never fails to render Beomgyu speechless. When Kai is on stage he becomes one with the performance, the music becomes a part of him– like it is something so natural to Kai. Beomgyu almost forgets why he is here, almost forgets about everyone else until Jinyoung is leaning over to speak into his ear.
The words are plain and simple. Three words that ring through his brain and echo back to him like a taunt. He’s really hot. Beomgyu cannot even bring himself to deny Jinyoung’s observation because it’s the truth. And the worst part is Jinyoung is hot too, and Beomgyu is starting to feel entirely pathetic in this stupid bar. He clears his throat even though no one can hear it over the music and he nods his head jerkily.
Beomgyu reaches for Soobin’s drink, ignoring his friend’s question gaze as he takes one long gulp. He coughs at the burn down his throat, the alcohol hitting him straight through the sinuses and making his eyes water behind his glasses. Beomgyu puts the drink down and pushes it back towards Soobin.
“Are you thirsty, Beomgyu?” He asks, eyes worried despite the tease in his voice.
Beomgyu swallows down another embarrassing cough.
“I need, like, ten of whatever that is to get through the night,” he declares to Soobin.
All Soobin does in response, though, is rub Beomgyu’s back in comfort. He tries not to shake it off because that would be rude, instead he pretends it’s not happening and excuses himself to get a drink. Yeonjun perks up at the action, eyes wide and asking if Beomgyu can get him one too because he doesn’t want to miss the performance. Beomgyu nods his head, hoping he doesn’t come across as grumpy as he feels.
The bar isn’t even crowded. Maybe it’s because most of the people are standing near the stage, or maybe it’s because Beomgyu just isn’t paying so much attention to his surroundings. But he finds himself in a corner, ordering drinks for himself and Yeonjun. He stays there for a while, choosing to stay in the darkness where the music isn’t too loud and where he has almost no view of Kai jumping about the stage. Beomgyu stares at the table he had walked away from, an uneasy dread settling in his chest as he watches the way Jinyoung stares at Kai.
By the time he heads back over to the table, Beomgyu may have had one or two drinks by the bar without anyone knowing. He isn’t drunk or anything, unfortunately, but he has definitely had enough alcohol to get through the painful ordeal of being Kai’s wingman. Beomgyu briefly worries Yeonjun might complain that he took too long, especially since the ice in his drink has melted so much and the condensation on the cup is dripping off the edge.
Yeonjun only takes it eagerly, thanking Beomgyu before taking a small sip.
Beomgyu falls back into his seat and gulps his own drink, forgoing the straw in the cup. Soobin stares at him with wide eyes, amusement swimming between the concern in his eyes.
“Maybe you should get some water, too,” he says. Beomgyu pouts at him, shaking his head wordlessly. Soobin sighs simply. “Just don’t blackout,” he mutters. “I’m not carrying you back home.”
Beomgyu is about to argue that he would not black out, and even if he did, Soobin would not be the one carrying him home. No, that would be–
“Kai!” He smiles at his best friend, hand calling Kai over even though he is standing by the table.
Kai stares at Beomgyu, eyes kind and smile wide. The sweat on his forehead is obvious, but Beomgyu thinks he looks beautiful either way. There are a couple of hairs stuck to his forehead as a result, and Beomgyu tightens his grip around the cup to stop himself from brushing it away. Beomgyu lets his gaze wander to where Yeonjun is embracing Taehyun happily, the two of them talking quietly to themselves before Yeonjun ushers Taehyun into his seat.
“Kai,” Beomgyu calls again, cutting his conversation with Soobin short. “This,” he gestures to Jinyoung. “This is Jinyoung. He’s in my 1920’s Classics class.”
Kai turns to the stranger then, a flash of something Beomgyu cannot decipher taking over his face. He’s sure no one else notices, but Beomgyu does because he notices everything about Kai. And then Kai’s face slips into the sort of look Beomgyu has only seen a handful of times. Mostly because he has never been around whenever Kai has been with other people, mostly because he has never wanted to be around to see it. Beomgyu doesn’t get a choice now, and being the introducer only means he is forced to watch the way Kai and Jinyoung practically eye-fuck each other in the damn bar.
He downs the rest of his drink, the burn seeping right into his chest to where his heart threatens to break and bleed all over the gross table. Beomgyu clears his throat, looking between the two of them.
“Jinyoung,” he says uselessly. “This is Kai. My– my friend.”
Kai seems to break out of his reverie then, his eyes softening as he looks at Beomgyu. The dark and heavy look in them disappears immediately, now replaced with a polite warmth. Beomgyu slouches, sulking at the stupid thought that Kai doesn’t think he is as attractive as Jinyoung. He leans into Soobin’s side, trying not to make it obvious to Kai that he is upset. Though, Beomgyu figures Kai can’t be too bothered because he is sliding in beside Jinyoung and striking up a conversation.
“Water?” Soobin asks, unaware of whatever just happened.
Beomgyu rests his head on Soobin’s shoulder, denying it softly. “I’m okay,” he says quietly.
“Okay,” Soobin mumbles back before jumping back into his conversation with Taehyun.
Beomgyu lets all the noise blur together for the night. Somewhere along the way he has gotten a few more drinks and he has gotten involved in the conversation, far too passionate about whatever topic they’re talking about. He doesn’t even have a legit idea what it is they are arguing about, just that he’s on Yeonjun’s side. And it’s fun, Beomgyu realises. He is having fun drinking and talking with his friends, arguing with Soobin and stressing him out as he starts to give increasingly valid points.
He doesn’t know what time it is when he realises Kai and Jinyoung aren’t at the table anymore. Beomgyu doesn’t even know when they left, only taking the time to acknowledge it when Taehyun declares he needs to go to the bathroom and Yeonjun goes to get them more drinks. Beomgyu had turned to check up on them, mouth stuck open as he realises it is just him and Soobin left at the table now. His friend calls his attention back, a little apprehensive about the implications but he shoots Beomgyu a reassuring smile.
“You okay?”
Beomgyu closes his mouth, suddenly reeling with the reality of it all. He freezes up, ready to shake it all off and nod his head at Soobin’s question. Beomgyu is okay, he is perfectly fine. He can ignore it all and he can continue having fun with Soobin, Taehyun and Yeonjun. Beomgyu can ignore it.
Or, at least, he thought he could.
But then Kai and Jinyoung return and it’s all too painfully obvious. The way Jinyoung’s messy hair is messier, his eye makeup is more smudged than before and his clothes are definitely not sitting on him like they were two hours ago. Kai’s hair is messy, too. His lips are brighter than before, somewhat swollen and the dark marks blooming on his pale skin make Beomgyu’s stomach churn. He looks away, purposefully avoiding that end of the table as he sips on his drink stupidly.
It’s fine, until Taehyun starts making his snarky comments. It’s fine, until Kai makes comments back and it’s so clear in his voice what he’s just done. It’s fine, until it’s not. And Beomgyu starts to feel embarrassingly dizzy, starts to feel the alcohol making his lips numb, starts to feel the burn so far in his throat it threatens to come back up. He turns to Soobin, almost frantic.
“Can– can you take me home,” he urgently requests, voice so low because if he speaks up he’ll either cry or throw up. Maybe both. Beomgyu avoids everyone’s heavy eyes on him, grabbing Soobin before he can answer. “Sorry. I– we have to go now.”
It’s not a nice thing to do, Beomgyu knows that. It’s not nice to drag Soobin out of the bar when he was enjoying himself, it’s not nice to suddenly leave Jinyoung when he had invited him– although Beomgyu is sure that his classmate is doing just fine without him. But if he stays here any longer he thinks he might just break down, so he drags Soobin outside and feels the night breeze on his face with relief.
“Beomgyu, are you okay?” Soobin asks, crowding into his space and looking almost disturbed.
Beomgyu stares at Soobin, suddenly feeling much too hot and bothered. He shakes his head helplessly, choking on a breath.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” he warns.
It’s as far as he gets before barely missing Soobin’s shoes. Beomgyu spills his guts all over the floor by the bar’s entrance, feeling so pathetic and so useless that he debates face planting it just to remind himself he is real. But Soobin holds him up before he gets to do that, guiding Beomgyu away from the mess he had just made. He looks grossed out– more so at the sour stench of Beomgyu’s vomit than the fact Beomgyu vomited. And he is so nice about it, brushing Beomgyu’s hair off his forehead and forcing him to take deep breaths.
Beomgyu’s a lot better off by the time he and Soobin make it to his house, the front porch lights on. He sighs deeply, really hoping his father is not awake at this hour. Soobin pats Beomgyu on the back encouragingly.
“Do you want me to help you in?”
He shakes his head again. He doesn’t feel as sick anymore– not physically at least. Beomgyu just feels sweaty and stupid.
“No,” he says in a weak voice. “I’ll be okay,” he whispers. “Thank you.”
“Are you sure?”
Beomgyu nods his head, looking at Soobin with tired eyes. “Yeah– I just wanna sleep.”
“Okay,” his friend smiles. “Make sure you drink some water before sleeping. And brush your teeth.”
He only struggles slightly with the key in his front door, his grip weaker than he’d like to admit. Beomgyu gets there eventually, slowly creaking the heavy door open and kicking off his shoes gently. The only light on is the lamp beside the shoe rack, only illuminating enough space for Beomgyu to make his way through the foyer silently. He thanks god quietly that his father is asleep as he gets into his kitchen to grab a glass of water. It soothes his dry throat, the cold water eases the burn in his chest.
After fumbling his way through going to the bathroom and doing a poor job of washing up, he falls face first into bed. Beomgyu curls over, burying his head in his pillow and ignoring the duvet because he is still too hot. He is also still in his jeans and t-shirt, the cardigan thrown across a chair somewhere. The pressure in his head is far too dizzying and he finds himself easily giving in to the heavy sleep taking over his senses.
“Beom-ah.”
Beomgyu groans painfully, eyes squeezing shut and hiding in his pillow. The light coming through his blinds is muted but it’s enough to cut through the splitting headache even with his eyes closed. He grumbles some words under his breath, something about not being hungry for breakfast and have a good day at work, dad, I love you, too.
The voice scoffs at him but Beomgyu doesn’t care. He is so close to falling back asleep.
“Do I sound like your dad?”
Beomgyu groans again, rolling onto his back and mustering the strength to squint at the person in his room. He closes his eyes again immediately after.
“Whatever,” Beomgyu barely murmurs.
Kai doesn’t say anything more, but the bed dips in favour of his weight as he slides in beside Beomgyu. He doesn’t have the energy to even feel nervous over the way Kai snakes an arm over Beomgyu’s waist and pulls him in close. Beomgyu cannot even pull away, far too comfortable in Kai’s arms. All he can do is bury his face in Kai’s chest instead, muttering something incoherent before wrapping his own arms around Kai.
“Are you– how much did you drink last night?”
Beomgyu lifts his head slightly, making a noise of complaint.
“Too loud. Whisper.”
Kai snorts out a laugh, apologising immediately when Beomgyu whines in pain at the sound of it.
“Sorry, sorry,” he whispers gently, hands coming up to brush through Beomgyu’s messy hair. “Seriously, Beom, what did you have?”
“I don’t know,” he admits, voice muffled in Kai’s jacket. “Whatever Soobin had– ten of them?”
“Jeez,” Kai sighs. “How are you even alive right now?”
“I’m not,” Beomgyu replies, patting Kai’s hand away from his hair. “Headache.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Kai chastises with no real bite. “Let me get you some painkillers.”
Beomgyu freezes then, his arms tightening around Kai unconsciously.
“Mm-mm,” he denies childishly. “Just wanna sleep some more.”
“It’s past noon,” Kai argues. Yet his body settles back down with Beomgyu, readjusting the hold so they can both lie down comfortably. “You gotta get up at some point.”
“One more hour,” Beomgyu mumbles. “Just– give me one more hour.”
There’s a silence then, and Beomgyu feels himself floating back into sleep easily. It’s extra tempting, the pull of sleep as he lies in Kai’s arms and listens to his heartbeats carefully. The rocking of Kai’s breaths lulling him back into the peaceful darkness.
“Your friend was nice,” Kai says.
And just like that, the peace is gone.
Beomgyu hopes Kai cannot notice the way he has gone rigid in his hold.
“Who?” he asks stupidly.
“Jinyoung,” Kai answers easily. “Don’t tell me you can’t remember last night,” he jokes.
“I do,” Beomgyu says. “Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“I remember– your performance,” Beomgyu starts. “Whatever poison Soobin was drinking, and– throwing up.”
Kai almost jolts in Beomgyu’s arms. “What–? You threw up?”
Beomgyu whines again, patting Kai on the shoulder because the sudden movement has made him feel another bout of nausea.
“Don’t– don’t do that,” he warns, sighing softly when Kai settles back down.
“Beomgyu, what the hell?”
“What?” He asks in defence. “I was– enjoying myself,” he tells Kai. “It looks like you did too,” Beomgyu mutters before he can stop himself.
Kai makes a confused sound from the back of his throat and then he makes a sound of understanding.
“Oh– you mean– with Jinyoung?”
“No, I mean with Yeonjun,” Beomgyu whispers sarcastically, unable to hide the unimpressed touch in his voice. “Did I find your perfect match?”
Kai is quiet for a minute and Beomgyu worries if his voice was too harsh. Worries if he gave himself away with the sudden change in mood.
“Oh,” Kai says again, much too softly and much too painful for Beomgyu to bear. “Um. We– well, he’s…” The silence takes over again, and Beomgyu frowns at Kai’s unusual behaviour. He lifts his head from Kai’s chest, mildly surprised to find him blushing. “I think we both realised we’re just a good… physical match,” Kai admits shyly.
Beomgyu stares at Kai. He blinks at him in disbelief.
“You– Kai, dude,” Beomgyu punches him in the shoulder weakly. “You said you wanna find real love, not– no more of the hooking up.”
“I know!” Kai argues back, dodging Beomgyu’s painless hit. “I know,” he nods his head. “It just kinda happened, okay.”
“You suck,” Beomgyu grumbles.
“You love me,” Kai teases, pulling Beomgyu back down.
He gulps down the weight in his throat, looking Kai in the eyes as they lie beside each other. Kai turns his head to the ceiling, closing his eyes and sighing softly. Beomgyu stares at him silently.
“Yeah,” he agrees quietly, secretly. “I do.”
Beomgyu has known Kai for more than half his life now. He has spent all the important birthdays with Kai, all their milestone moments were achieved together, they have shared all their secrets with each other. Well, almost all of their secrets. But Beomgyu decides after that night that maybe– just maybe– he should heed some of Soobin’s advice.
It’s not like Beomgyu can cut Kai out of his life, that wouldn’t be good for either of them. But he cannot keep going on like this, not when it leads him to throwing up outside bars or crying himself to sleep. Beomgyu can’t live like that anymore. And he had always had the brief thought, the naive hope, that one day he would wake up and not be in love with Kai anymore. That one day, all of this would be a thing of the past and maybe he’d even be able to laugh about it with Kai.
Beomgyu wakes up every day loving Kai more than he did when he went to sleep.
So from now on, Beomgyu tells himself he is going to keep his healthy distance from Kai. All it means is that instead of spending his evening at Kai’s house, he is eating dinner with his dad. And it’s nice. Almost as nice as it would have been if he were with Kai. Beomgyu scoffs down some more food at the thought.
“Are you trying to block your windpipes?”
Beomgyu looks at his dad with wide eyes. The man is looking at him, humour shining through his old eyes.
While Beomgyu should probably feel a bit sour over his dad laughing at him, he must admit it’s a nice thing to see. His dad had spent too long going about life with no emotion in his eyes, nothing but the responsibility of raising a kid all by himself with no real room to grieve. Beomgyu swallows down the lump of rice, looking at his father sheepishly.
“Sorry,” he says. His father looks at him, but doesn’t speak. Beomgyu shifts under the serious gaze. “What?”
“Aren’t you usually having dinner at Kai’s on Wednesdays?”
Beomgyu shakes his head, eyes on his plate as he brushes off the question.
“No,” he lies.
“Beom-ah,” his dad calls softly. Beomgyu looks at him simply. “As much as I’d love to believe you’re enjoying the three-day old rice, I can tell there’s something bothering you.”
He clears his throat, frowning. “This is from three days ago?”
“Beomgyu.”
“It’s nothing,” he tells his dad. “I promise– just… can’t a kid wanna spend time with his dad?”
His father stares at him carefully, definitely not believing him. But the man decides not to say anything more, only nodding his head and changing the topic swiftly. Beomgyu lets out the relieved exhale he didn’t know he was hiding in his chest. He takes another bite of the food, a lot less rushed and a lot more hesitant now that he knows it’s three days old.
And then he lies in bed that evening, blinking at his ceiling and wondering if his life is really that boring without Kai in it. Beomgyu starts to feel pathetic, because it’s not even been a full week of this avoidance game yet. He wonders about Kai, if he can tell there’s a shift in Beomgyu’s messages, if he can tell Beomgyu is trying to be around him less. Beomgyu wonders if this is worth it– if this pain hurts more than the pain being around Kai. He struggles to balance the extreme differences between the two types of pain.
The pain of missing Kai as he forces himself through this stupid avoidance plan. The pain of not texting Kai his random thoughts, not sending him random pictures throughout his day of classes, of holding back on sending him a million texts back. Compared to the pain of being around Kai, Beomgyu figures they hurt the same.
Being around Kai hurts with a longing, a fulfilled sense of here Kai is as Beomgyu holds back on his urge to hold Kai with more meaning than he shows. Being away from Kai hurts with a hollow emptiness in his chest that leaves Beomgyu feeling utterly miserable.
He closes his eyes, and sighs in frustration.
“Oh, so you are alive.”
Beomgyu keeps his eyes closed, the empty pain morphing into that deep ache at the sound of Kai’s voice. He stays quiet, pretends to be asleep, maybe. Beomgyu holds his breath.
“Are you pretending to be asleep?” Kai asks, his voice tinted with something that stings Beomgyu.
He opens his eyes, feeling his heartbeat in his chest as he makes eye contact with Kai.
“No,” he whispers. “I was– meditating.”
Kai cracks a smile, scoffing at Beomgyu lightheartedly. “Sure you were,” he mutters sarcastically.
“What are you doing here?” Beomgyu asks.
Kai shrugs his shoulders, already lying down beside Beomgyu. “Dunno,” he tells Beomgyu.
“It’s like ten o’clock,” Beomgyu says uselessly. “It’s late.”
“Hm,” Kai shifts beside Beomgyu. He reaches for the book on Beomgyu’s desk. “I missed you.”
The ache in Beomgyu’s chest seeps down into his stomach and leaves him almost gasping for air.
“Why?”
“What?”
Beomgyu turns to Kai, eyes wide and maybe too obvious. He blinks at Kai.
“Why did you miss me?”
“Why wouldn’t I miss you?” Kai asks back. He fiddles with the book in his hands, flicking through some pages. “Feel like we haven’t spoken properly in ages,” he mumbles shyly.
Ages, Beomgyu thinks to himself bitterly, has only been five days.
“Sorry,” Beomgyu mumbles. “Been– busy.”
The silence that takes over has Beomgyu trapped in his thoughts. He tries not to focus on the sinking feeling in his chest, the deep lingering yearn that he feels even when Kai is lying right next to him. The fact that it means Beomgyu is sad when he’s around Kai makes him want to cry, but he doesn’t. All he does is swallow down the knot in his throat and say something stupid.
“Is– is it because I haven’t set you up on another date yet?”
He keeps his eyes on the ceiling, not strong enough to face Kai as he turns to Beomgyu in shock.
“What?”
Beomgyu purses his lips. “I don’t know,” he relents weakly.
“Beomgyu, what?”
“It’s just a question,” he tells Kai. “Relax.”
“Wh– are you okay?”
He turns to Kai then, breath stuttering and getting caught in his throat as he takes in the way Kai stares at him. The gentle but concerned frown on his face, making his eyebrows pull together and casting his face in a darker mood than Beomgyu likes to see on him. He can’t help the surprise that paints his own features– Kai looks almost offended.
“What do you mean?” Beomgyu asks.
Kai’s frown deepens. “You– you’ve been… different? Or, like, I don’t know–”
“I’ve been the same as I always am,” Beomgyu replies. “Just busy.”
Kai only stares at him blankly, eyes searching Beomgyu’s. But Beomgyu has had years to learn how to stare back without Kai realising how he feels, and he uses it far more often than he’d like. So they stare at each other simply until Kai turns his head back, the air between them only slightly awkward.
“Right,” Kai mutters, more to himself than to Beomgyu. “Well, I miss you,” he says again.
“I’m right here,” Beomgyu reminds him, forcing himself to give Kai a light smile for a second. “And now you’re here too, you can read me the next chapter of that book,” he says, gesturing towards the book in Kai’s grip.
He looks at it, and Beomgyu thinks he’s going to refuse. Kai always puts up a weak argument before always giving in. Yet, this time, all he does is open the book compliantly, clearing his throat and reading it out loud to Beomgyu. It’s unnecessarily awkward for a while, but Beomgyu wonders if it’s all in his own head because Kai seems to be happily talking through the book. He even chucks in his own two cents every now and then, making a remark that makes Beomgyu smile, or something that he has to explain to Kai.
The night goes on until Kai starts yawning, even though he tries to hide it so Beomgyu doesn’t notice. It goes on until Beomgyu has fallen asleep to the sound of Kai’s voice softly muttering the words on the page to him, until he gives in to the inevitable and curls into Kai to physically remove whatever stupid distance he tried putting between them. Until Kai curls into Beomgyu too, sighing happily and wishing him a goodnight even if he never hears it.
“I’m gonna need you to go on a date with Kai.”
Soobin looks at Beomgyu like he has grown another head. The gleam in his eyes is something akin to fear or disgust, Beomgyu cannot tell.
“What?”
“You,” Beomgyu says. “Date Kai.”
“Literally, are you on drugs?”
Beomgyu falls into the chair beside Soobin, sliding up close and almost pleading.
“Soobin, I’m being serious.”
“So am I,” he tells Beomgyu. “That is the craziest idea you could have come up with.”
“Why?” He presses. “I mean– it’s not like it’s– I mean, you don’t like Kai, do you?”
“No!”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“Um,” Soobin pretends to think about it. “Everything?”
“Please,” Beomgyu actually starts pleading now, clasping his hands together and all. “For me?”
“For you?” Soobin asks with a raised eyebrow. “You want me to go on a date with your crush and sabotage it… for you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what do I gain out of it?”
“My mental stability.”
“No one’s getting that,” Soobin remarks. Beomgyu shoves his shoulder weakly. “Can I think about it?”
Beomgyu nods his head, already over the moon that Soobin is even considering it.
“Can I ask why me?” Soobin asks.
“I can’t take it anymore,” Beomgyu groans, only almost overdramatically. “If I set him up and it turns out like it did with Jinyoung again, I– I can’t take that,” he mutters. “You– I trust you to make it a really bad date.”
“Oh, thanks,” Soobin says sarcastically. Beomgyu rolls his eyes.
Soobin doesn’t say anything more, but he doesn’t need to. The look he gives Beomgyu is more than enough communication, the unspoken promise that he’ll help Beomgyu with this one thing. It lifts the weight of dread that had made its place on Beomgyu’s heart, slightly weakened by the reassurance that this is the last time he has to do this stupid date thing with Kai.
The rest of the day goes on like it usually does. Beomgyu has his last class of the day and only gets out of university when the sun has had enough of its time in the sky. The dusty purple feels almost surreal, but it brings some sort of peace to Beomgyu. He hasn’t seen Soobin since lunch, their last two classes of the day didn’t coincide and he’s pretty sure Soobin has already gone back to his dorm. Beomgyu begins his commute home, more than comfortable with this soft evening around him.
His father is already back from work by the time Beomgyu closes the front door behind himself. It’s only slightly surprising, because his dad tends to work late into the evening on Tuesdays, but Beomgyu takes one glance at the date and understands. His father also tends to get closed off every time this anniversary approaches. Beomgyu takes his own time to acknowledge the week coming up, the one day next week where he isn’t quite sure what he will feel.
Which is ridiculous, because every year he wakes up on that day feeling the exact same.
For some reason, he never seems to believe that the next year will be the same.
So he is only mildly apprehensive to walk into the kitchen, the smell of some food he hasn’t had in years hitting his nose. His father seems far too preoccupied to notice Beomgyu’s presence, lifting the lids off pots and pans to mix whatever he is cooking.
“Smells nice,” Beomgyu says, voice careful.
In the beginning, his father didn’t speak to Beomgyu. Not for the fact that he was bitter, but mostly for the fact that he never knew what to say to his eleven-year-old son who had just lost his mother. He used to struggle to get out of bed, to feed himself – to feed Beomgyu. And yet, he never got angry. His father has always been the kind man, the good father who would sacrifice it all for his family. Beomgyu had been too young to understand it, really.
He had been too young to understand why Kai’s mother would use a spare key to their house so she could get him ready for school. Why she would leave tupperware in their refrigerator for his dad to reheat when he found the small amount of energy. Beomgyu didn’t really get it at first, but the more he looks back on it, the more he gets it.
His father was back to being the man Beomgyu remembers him as by the time he had left middle school. Sometimes, there was a darkness in his eyes, an emptiness Beomgyu could never find reasoning for. Sometimes, he wonders if he had ever made it harder for his father.
The man turns around at Beomgyu’s voice, startled at the sound. He looks at Beomgyu, smiling but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes like it would have if this was last week.
“Oh,” he says, turning back to the kitchen. “I– I found some old photos this morning.”
Beomgyu frowns. “This morning? You didn’t go to work?”
“I wasn’t feeling very well this morning,” the man says. Beomgyu could have sworn his father was not in his bedroom when he left for university this morning. “Don’t worry.”
Beomgyu drops the frown, but that doesn’t mean he stops worrying.
“I found these photos,” his dad says again. “We were at this restaurant, and I had completely forgotten about that evening– and then looking at the photo, I swear I could remember exactly how that meal tasted.”
Beomgyu stays silent, watching his father patter about the kitchen as he retells the story.
“Your mother was going on about the dinner for weeks after,” he says, barely glancing at Beomgyu. “Do you remember that night?”
“No,” Beomgyu says, gulping slowly. “Not really.”
“Ah,” his father waves it off. “You remember the food?”
“I…” Beomgyu gives in, taking a seat on the kitchen table and dangling his legs. “I remember her cooking it for your birthday every year,” he tells his father. The man nods his head, stirring something again and seeming to get lost in his thoughts. Beomgyu watches him silently. “Are… Are you sure you’re okay?”
His father turns around, nodding his head at Beomgyu simply. “Mhm.”
“Okay,” Beomgyu says quietly. “I have a class next week,” he says carefully, still watching his father’s actions. “Will you be okay? It’s just one hour.”
“Beomgyu,” he says gently, looking his son in the eyes. “I am– I should be asking you that,” the man mutters more to himself. “I will be okay,” he promises.
Maybe he should be the one checking in on his child, but Beomgyu’s relationship with his father changed the moment his mother died almost ten years ago. From that moment on, it became a lot more about the unspoken things, more about the reliance and comfort of each other, the reassurance that they are still here. Beomgyu doesn’t know when it really happened, but he’s grown much more protective over his father as the years went by, much more aware of what to do to keep his father from spiralling into the dark place again.
So he’d miss one class if his father needs him, and he knows his father will tell him honestly if that were the case.
They eat dinner together, sitting on their old couch in front of the television while watching old home videos that his father found this morning. They laugh at the funny things, they make remarks about the silly things, and they both shed a few tears at the missing piece present in the videos only. Beomgyu looks over the old photos as his father clears their dinner away, he sifts through them and takes his time on the ones from before he was born. He ignores the ones from his cringy past, only letting himself glance at the ones that include Kai.
Beomgyu finds himself staring at an old photo he feels like he had never seen before.
It’s him, with his really bad haircut and his bright blue jacket, standing beside Kai. Kai, who is in his bright red jacket with his stupidly long hair. Beomgyu’s mother is in the photo too, crouched behind the two little boys and embracing them with a wide smile.
He finds himself smiling at the photo too. Beomgyu isn’t quite sure if he even looks much like his mother, but looking at her in this picture, looking at her smile, he starts to believe he has the same one. His eyes trace her features until they blur over with the small tears that fall. He wipes his eyes hastily as he hears his father approaching. Beomgyu sniffles quietly, choosing to stare at the way he isn’t even facing the camera. No, Beomgyu, even at seven-years-old, only has his eyes on Kai, it seems.
“That one’s a nice one,” his dad says.
Beomgyu looks up at him, nodding his head quietly. “Yeah.”
“You– you should keep it with you.”
He shakes his head. “Nah,” he says weakly. “Mum spent too much time on these photo albums for me to just take one.”
His father waves it off. “These things collect dust most of the days in a year,” he reminds Beomgyu. “That picture is too nice to only be looked at once a year.”
Beomgyu looks down at the photo again. He looks at Kai’s bright smile, the overbite before he got his braces, the thick strands of hair in his face, the painfully obnoxious jacket. He smiles, looking at his dad, unable to hide the way his eyes shine with tears again. The man seems quite surprised at the tears in Beomgyu’s eyes.
This time, Beomgyu isn’t quite sure why he is crying. Maybe he is crying for the fact that he cannot even see his mother in himself very often, maybe it’s for the fact that he cannot love someone other than his best friend who won’t love him back, maybe it’s for his father who loved and lost.
All he knows is that his father takes him in his arms, and holds Beomgyu like he is the little boy in the photo. Like he is far too small and far too young to be feeling all the ache and sadness that he does. Maybe he isn’t too small or too young, but in his father’s arms, Beomgyu cries and believes that just for the night he can be small.
Kai is plucking at his guitar absentmindedly, the twangy sounds of it are good company for the book Beomgyu reads. He only stops paying attention to the words on the page when Kai starts humming some words to himself, something indecipherable but the melody is nice enough. Beomgyu looks over at Kai from where he sits on the other’s beanbag chucked in the corner of his bedroom. Kai sits on his bed, legs crossed and head down.
His hair is so long that it hangs down far enough to hide him from Beomgyu’s view entirely. It also means that he does not notice Beomgyu’s heavy stare, the clear longing in his gaze as he feels Kai’s distance with each guitar chord. The humming turns into mumbled singing, a soft murmur that carries over into the bedroom and has Beomgyu tilting his head in wonder.
“I can’t focus with you staring at me like that.”
Beomgyu freezes. Kai lifts his head then, nothing but amusement twinkling in his eyes. Beomgyu lets out a relieved exhale.
“I wasn’t staring like anything,” he mumbles stupidly.
Kai raises an eyebrow. “I’ve got a hole in my head from how hard you were looking.”
“Those make for some pretty good lyrics,” Beomgyu suggests, nodding his head. He looks back to his book, mostly just to hide his face behind it. Kai snorts loudly.
“They really wouldn’t.”
“Well–”
“I know,” Kai says, dragging the word out. “It’s all subjective – I know, Beomgyu.”
He pulls a face at Kai’s childish tone. “Alright,” he mutters in pretend offence. “Don’t need to get pissy about it.”
Kai sighs. Beomgyu looks at him again.
“Sorry,” Kai says. Beomgyu raises an eyebrow. “It’s– Tae’s been getting at me about writing some new songs,” he admits. “But everything I write… It feels too personal.”
“Isn’t that what music is meant to be?” Beomgyu asks.
Kai twists his mouth to the side in deep thought. “Yeah,” he answers. “It is. But… sometimes there are things I’m not ready to share yet.”
The question like what? dares to fall from Beomgyu’s lips but he holds them back. Clearly, Kai doesn’t want to share it if it is too personal, he decides for him. Instead, Beomgyu only hums in acknowledgement, getting back to his book.
He doesn’t realise how silent it has been until Kai suddenly shifts from where he was on the bed. He comes up to where Beomgyu sits, taking a seat opposite him and staring. Beomgyu lowers his book, staring back at Kai.
“What?”
Kai seems to hesitate around what he wants to say. Beomgyu waits patiently.
“Don’t you wanna hear it?” Kai asks carefully, quietly.
Beomgyu blinks at him. “Isn’t it too personal?”
Kai shrugs his shoulders. “Maybe,” he whispers.
“Do you want to show me?”
Kai stares at him. “Maybe? I– I don’t know,” he admits.
“Okay,” Beomgyu replies simply. Kai still seems a bit restless, leaning over to pull something out from his drawer before he puts it in Beomgyu’s book.
“You can maybe read it yourself,” Kai says, eyes wide. “On your own.”
“Oh,” Beomgyu mutters, looking at the crinkled edges of paper sticking out from the back of the book. He looks at Kai. “Okay.”
“Also,” Kai speaks. “There’s something else I wanted to say.”
Beomgyu closes his book, sitting up. He didn’t really want to tell Kai like this, but he figures he’d rather rip the bandaid off himself.
“Don’t worry, I know,” Beomgyu says. Kai looks at him with wide eyes.
“You do?”
Beomgyu nods his head. “Your next date,” he fills in. Kai’s face flashes with something confusing, but Beomgyu is too focussed on getting his next words out to dwell on the look. “I didn’t want to jump into this one. I can’t really tell you who it is yet, but I have a time and place.”
“Oh,” Kai says, sounding almost breathless. Beomgyu nods his head. “You do?”
“Yep,” Beomgyu answers. “Saturday night,” he tells Kai. “You know the Italian restaurant I used to work at over the Summer?”
Kai nods his head, eyes focused on the book Beomgyu had closed.
“I booked the table for seven,” Beomgyu informs him. “That works for you, right?”
Kai’s eyes look up at him, a little wide but still blank. He nods his head again, clearing his throat. “Yeah,” he says weakly. “Yeah. That works.”
“Okay, cool,” Beomgyu says lightly. “I’ll let the other person know.”
He forgets about the song Kai hid in his book for the next couple of days. Beomgyu has been far too busy trying to ease Soobin into the fact that yes, you will have dinner with Kai, but no, it is not a real date. His friend gets the idea soon enough, and Saturday rolls around quickly. Kai has started the day by texting Beomgyu for more information on the surprise date, and all he tells Kai is that he's a guy who Beomgyu is really good friends with. He definitely does not say who it is exactly.
And then it becomes Saturday evening far too quickly. Beomgyu decides to give it exactly five minutes past seven before he checks his phone for any update. He also hopes Kai doesn’t just bolt it out of the restaurant the second he sees Soobin. He gives it until ten past seven before he picks up his book, suddenly remembering the song Kai had left there. Beomgyu ignores it, he tries to ignore the time and he ignores the fact that he sent Kai on a date with Soobin.
No, all he does is focus on the book in his hands. His father is working late today, so Beomgyu has all the silence in the world to read as much of this book as he wants. And yet, he flicks right to the back of it and pulls out the crinkled paper. Kai’s handwriting has always been laughably atrocious. Beomgyu finds himself smiling at it even now, as he opens up the folded paper and tries to smooth it out gently. His eyes catch onto one or two words naturally before they land at the very top of the page.
His fingers trace where Kai has scribbled down the date– some time at the beginning of the month, somewhere between the date with Jaehee and the night with Jinyoung. Beomgyu holds back a pretentious scoff at the way Kai has written untitled right at the top of the page, an endeared smile on his face. He takes a deep breath in and exhales it slowly before committing to finally reading over the lyrics Kai has written on the page.
It’s too much. Beomgyu has to take some time away every few lines, he has to school his breathing and he has to force himself not to overthink. None of this means what he thinks it does, none of it hits Kai the way it hits Beomgyu– he’s sure of it. All it means is that Kai wrote a good song. Something people in different circumstances can relate to. It’s something Kai wrote because he wants to find love, obviously. It’s something Beomgyu relates to because he wants love to find him.
It’s far too subjective.
His phone starts ringing by the time he is at the end of the song. It has taken an embarrassingly long time to get through the lyrics, some lines easily being skimmed over, some lines needing to be read over a couple more times for Beomgyu to move on. He reaches for the phone without a thought, answering it without any worry for who it may be on the other line. Beomgyu comes back to reality at the sound of his father’s voice, reminding him that he’ll be back later than normal and Beomgyu should just lock up before sleeping.
By the time Beomgyu gets to the front door to lock it, there is someone knocking at it. Half hesitantly, he pulls his open and comes face to face with Kai.
Kai looks angry. Beomgyu stares at him in surprise, only moving aside when Kai lets himself in. He closes the door again, barely able to get a word out as Kai goes up to Beomgyu’s bedroom.
He follows him, slowly but not so scared. Beomgyu gulps.
“Kai?”
He turns around then, jaw still clenched but the anger in his eyes is a lot more diluted now.
“You sent me on a date with Soobin,” Kai says.
Beomgyu opens his mouth to speak, but the words won’t come out.
“Why?”
He stares at Kai. “You asked me to,” Beomgyu says pathetically.
Kai sighs sharply, turning away from Beomgyu again and shaking his head in disbelief.
“What would you do if I said I like Soobin?” Kai asks suddenly. Beomgyu blinks at him, finding it a little hard to believe, but maybe that’s just the confusion warping his senses. “If I said the date was really nice,” Kai continues, stepping closer to Beomgyu slowly. “And I want to see him again– I want to see where it goes with him.”
“Um,” Beomgyu stares up at Kai, heart beating in his chest with how close Kai is. “I–” he looks away from Kai’s intense stare, frowning. “I’d message Soobin and see if he’d want that? I don’t–? What am I supposed to–”
“Did you read the song?” Kai asks.
Beomgyu looks at him again. He nods his head slowly.
“What did you think?”
“It…” Beomgyu clears his throat. “It was really good, Kai-yah.”
“Right,” Kai whispers. “Do you know what Soobin said to me today?”
Beomgyu shakes his head, a ridiculous nervous sweat threatening to prickle out onto his skin. “No.”
“We were talking about the other dates you set me up with,” Kai says, visibly trying to keep his voice neutral. “And– the night you got drunk,” he mutters. “He said something really crazy, actually,” Kai laughs coldly. “Something about you giving me bad dates on purpose. That he was supposed to make it a really bad one, just so I would come back and tell you to stop.”
Beomgyu closes his eyes, unable to bear the look of confused hurt spilling through Kai’s sincere gaze. He squeezes them shut, shaking his head even though Kai is telling the truth. He tries to breathe but the air is stuck in his chest and Beomgyu needs to step away– he needs to put distance between himself and Kai.
“Beomgyu.”
He shakes his head, shrinking in on himself and trying to ignore the tears stinging his eyes.
“Beomgyu,” Kai calls, his hands reaching for him but pausing when Beomgyu flinches away.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers brokenly. “I am,” Beomgyu sniffles even though he isn’t crying. He looks at Kai finally, eyes wide. “I’m sorry, Kai-yah.”
“Why did you do that?”
Kai doesn’t even sound angry. He sounds purely confused, simply wanting to know why Beomgyu wanted to sabotage his dates. Beomgyu stares at Kai in silence, the words stuck in his throat and leaving him choking.
“You could have just said no,” Kai whispers. “If you– if it bothered you that much, you never had to agree.”
“It didn’t bother me,” Beomgyu says. “I– I want you to be happy. So, if– if you like Soobin, then… then if you’re happy–”
“Did you read the song?” Kai asks again, almost interrogative.
Beomgyu looks at him in shock. “You already asked me that.”
“Well, did you?”
He nods his head. “I said yes.”
“Then you know,” Kai presses. Beomgyu shakes his head. “Beomgyu, don’t–”
“It’s subjective,” he cuts Kai off. They are the wrong words to say because Kai’s face shuts off into something completely unreadable and it leaves Beomgyu almost trembling. But he stands firm, looking Kai in the eyes. “It’s all subjective, Kai-yah–”
“Stop!”
Beomgyu looks at him with wide eyes, all his frantic thoughts disappearing at Kai’s loud voice. Kai looks almost physically pained, his face screwed up into this awful expression that cuts right into Beomgyu’s heart.
“Stop– stop saying that,” he almost begs. “It’s– the lyrics, Beomgyu, for fuck’s sake–” Kai cuts himself off, taking a deep breath. “No one is that oblivious.”
“Kai.”
“If it’s all subjective,” Kai gives in, “what does it mean to you?”
Beomgyu stays silent, never quite anticipating this to be how it all comes out. It’s not how he ever wanted it– but Beomgyu supposes he never knew how he did want it.
“It was about love,” he says vaguely.
“You wanna know what it felt like to me?” Kai asks, but he doesn’t give any real space for Beomgyu to answer. “Half agony,” he whispers softly, eyes melting as he watches the recognition settle on Beomgyu’s face. “Half hope.”
“Kai,” Beomgyu says quietly, weakly, shaking his head helplessly. “What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me the truth,” he says back. “Did it feel like that to you? Do I feel like that to you, Beomgyu?”
The words float around Beomgyu’s brain and tongue, tying it together and leaving him speechless. He tries to say something, anything, just to get Kai to stop looking at him like he has hurt Kai. And yet, all Beomgyu gets out is a weak whisper.
“I need space.”
The hurt flashes over Kai’s face, almost slipping into betrayal territory. Beomgyu looks away, looks at the floor with his head dipped in shame.
“Please,” he whispers to Kai, not strong enough to look him in the eyes. “Give me some time.”
Kai sighs, closing the distance between them to hold Beomgyu in his arms. He takes it in for a moment, he hides himself in Kai’s embrace, burying his face in his nice dress shirt and crying pathetically. Beomgyu lets Kai hold him, he becomes selfish for this small moment as Kai clearly ignores his own hurt to hold Beomgyu together. His hands are gentle as they rub over Beomgyu’s back, coaxing him to breathe properly, urging him to stop hiding away.
It takes some time, but Beomgyu gathers the courage to finally look Kai in the eyes again. He stares up at him, eyes closing and tears slipping out silently as Kai leans down to press a soft kiss on his forehead. Beomgyu holds back the pathetic sob, pulling away from Kai’s arms.
“I’m sorry,” he tells Kai again. “I am.”
“Please don’t say that,” Kai requests. “Don’t be sorry if it’s the truth.”
Beomgyu doesn’t look him in the eyes. He knows that if he does, he’ll get the answer to the one question he’s been dying to ask for the last five years of his life. Beomgyu doesn’t have the bravery to find out tonight. He can’t bring himself to come to terms with the fact that Kai knows now, with the fact that Kai is trying to tell him something too, but Beomgyu won’t let him.
He can’t find out like this if Kai really loves him back. So Beomgyu sends him away, he sends Kai back home and locks his front door once he leaves. And then Beomgyu curls up in his bed, his heart aching and his head hurting, his mind in agony and his heart tricked with hope.
He doesn’t go to his one class on Thursday.
Beomgyu’s father is only slightly concerned, but he is definitely too focussed on his own feelings today. And that’s okay. Beomgyu would rather they deal with their feelings separately today, mostly because there are too many of them inside Beomgyu and he doesn’t want to burden his father on this day. Their house is stiflingly silent.
His father hasn’t left his bedroom since breakfast, and even that was just for a cup of tea. Beomgyu hasn’t moved from where he sits on the sofa, briefly wondering if there’s anything special he needs to do today. He opts for bringing the one photo of his mother down from where it is usually placed on top of a cabinet, settling it on the small table in the room. He looks at it plainly, feeling her emptiness more than ever before.
It’s noon by the time Beomgyu forces himself to knock on his father’s door. The man clears his throat, sniffles, and then tells Beomgyu with a thick voice that he isn’t up for having lunch today. Beomgyu sighs, walking away from the bedroom door in defeat. The heaviness in his heart drags him down, has him dragging his feet down the stairs and across the foyer. Beomgyu gets to the door just as the incessant knocking becomes unbearable, opening it without much thought.
The tears finally fall at the sight of Kai’s mother waiting there, her arms already open to hold Beomgyu. He sniffles quietly, holding back and pulling away soon after. Beomgyu wipes his eyes with the back of his hand quickly, hastily pulling himself together to let her in. His eyes are downcast, even when Kai steps in behind his mother, his feet hovering under Beomgyu’s line of sight. He holds his breath, heart in his throat until Kai’s mother calls him into the kitchen and then it returns to its rightful place once Kai leaves Beomgyu’s side.
“Beomgyu, darling,” she calls as he makes his way into the kitchen. “What have you eaten?”
Beomgyu looks at her, only now feeling the pang of hunger in his stomach. He opens his mouth but closes it promptly after.
“Nothing,” he admits, voice rough and tired.
She looks at him carefully, eyes far too gentle and much too motherly. Beomgyu clears his throat, trying not to focus on Kai’s presence in the room. He closes his eyes, trying not to feel the weight of the woman’s loving gaze.
“Are you alright?” She asks then. Beomgyu looks at her briefly.
“Yes,” he lies. “Just tired, that's all.”
“Let me get some warm food in you,” she says more to herself than to Beomgyu. “Kai-yah,” she beckons her son over, Kai naturally settling into routine with his mother.
Beomgyu watches them both for a second before turning away and heading back up the stairs. His father’s bedroom door is fully closed now, and Beomgyu forces himself to knock on it softly. There’s no response, but he pushes the door open anyway, a little unsure of what might greet him on the other side.
His father lies in bed, something cradled in his arms but he’s turned the other way and Beomgyu cannot see.
“Dad?”
The man’s body shifts, but he does not move. Beomgyu sighs quietly.
“Kai and his mum are here,” he tells his father. “I’ll tell them you’re sleeping…” The silence persists, and Beomgyu swallows down another wave of tears. “I love you,” he whispers before closing the bedroom door again.
Beomgyu turns to head back down the stairs, coming up shortly startled as he nearly walks right into Kai.
“Oh,” he mutters in surprise, eyelids heavy as he lifts them to look at Kai. “Sorry.”
“Are you okay?” Kai asks, the question cutting short as he purses his lips. “Sorry,” he whispers. “That’s a stupid question.”
“It’s okay,” Beomgyu mumbles. “I’m okay.”
“Beomgyu,” Kai calls before he can walk away. He stops in his tracks, but doesn’t turn to face Kai again. “Can—”
The question doesn’t get asked because Kai chooses to act on it anyways. He turns Beomgyu around, pulling him into his arms and hugging him tightly. Beomgyu gives in, his arms wrapping around Kai and taking his first proper breath of air of the day. The exhale is shaky and jagged, his mourning and grief threatening to spill over onto Kai’s black t-shirt.
“I know, uh,” Beomgyu pulls away, barely looking at Kai properly. “I know I asked for space… you didn’t have to come.”
Kai tilts his head, eyes shining with concern.
“Beom-ah,” he sighs gently. “I haven’t let you spend this day alone in the past nine years.”
“Ten,” Beomgyu says without thinking. He looks at Kai sadly. “Today makes it the tenth year.”
It’s quiet again for a moment, and Beomgyu wonders if he should turn around now. If now is the time he should leave Kai alone in the hallway because he is really hungry and he can smell the food from the kitchen. Kai seems to notice, because all he does is run a hand over Beomgyu’s hair and smile at him. The smile is sad, it’s not pitiful but it’s understanding. It’s friendly, and Beomgyu decides that as much as he wants his space, he also needs his best friend today.
So he lets Kai lead him down to the kitchen, he lets Kai set his food for him and he lets Kai sit with him as they eat lunch together. Kai’s mother is plating up some food to take upstairs, leaving the two best friends to be alone for another moment. Beomgyu chooses to ignore the awkwardness between them for now, he chooses to rest his head on Kai’s shoulder and push the rice around with his chopsticks.
“I thought you were hungry,” Kai says softly. He rests his head on top of Beomgyu’s. “You can’t be full off of just a few bites.”
Beomgyu gulps. He takes another bite of food and feels Kai’s shoulders drop in relief. Beomgyu closes his eyes, chewing slower than he really needs to.
“Thank you,” he whispers once the food has gone down. “For coming,” Beomgyu clarifies, lifting his head off Kai’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
Kai stares at him. Their faces are very close, Beomgyu realises belatedly. It’s not like this is the first time they’ve ever been so close— they were this close almost a week ago, when Kai had cornered Beomgyu into admitting the truth. The memory of that night flashes through his mind and Kai notices how he visibly weakens. Beomgyu turns his head away, trying not to let his heart get in the way.
“Beomgyu,” Kai says quietly, almost fearfully. “I don’t… today isn’t— do you want to talk about it?”
The question isn’t really the right one. Beomgyu supposes it isn’t a question of if he wants to because they need to. They can’t let it go completely ignored. He faces Kai again.
“Do you?”
Kai sighs softly. “Yeah,” he admits.
“Okay,” Beomgyu whispers.
But they don’t talk about it any more than that. Not today, not when Beomgyu wants to spend the day with people who love and care about him. Not when Kai is here as his best friend; nothing more, nothing less. And that’s enough for Beomgyu today.
Kai does, however, make Beomgyu talk about it a few days later. One week after his date with Soobin, Kai shows up in Beomgyu’s bedroom. There is a determined glint in his eye that makes Beomgyu dread looking away from his laptop screen. If he’s being embarrassingly honest, Beomgyu has still kind of been avoiding Kai— minus the one day last week. He’s been wallowing in the depths of his despair, maybe a bit more than he needed to.
It shouldn’t surprise Beomgyu, really. Even Soobin had been encouraging him to talk to Kai after the date, promising Beomgyu that it would not go half as bad as he had drilled himself into believing. In fact, Soobin had been quite stern in his argument that avoiding Kai will hurt more than the much dreaded conversation. Beomgyu thinks about it now, only half bothered that Soobin always seems to know what is right. He would have gotten around to it eventually, Beomgyu knows he would have, because he cannot live his life without Kai.
And Kai shows up now, with a guitar in his hand and his face set in determination. Beomgyu faces him silently.
“Hi,” Kai says, voice relieved. Beomgyu swallows down the feeling growing in his chest. “Are— are you busy?”
He shakes his head, pushing his chair away from the desk. Beomgyu watches Kai move to take a seat on his bed, eyes suddenly avoiding Beomgyu’s stare.
“I— we should talk now.”
Beomgyu stays staring at Kai.
“Oh,” he says stupidly.
“Yeah,” Kai nods his head. “I spoke to Soobin—”
“I’m sorry,” Beomgyu says again, a lot less desperate than the first apology last week. He clears his throat, looking away to stop himself from getting caught up in the surprise marring Kai’s face. “For— for sabotaging your dates. It was a shitty thing to do,” he admits. “Just, don’t be mad at Soobin,” Beomgyu continues. “I, uh. I forced him to go through with that date. I’m the only person you should be mad at.”
“And the others?” Kai asks quietly, looking at Beomgyu so carefully. “Did you— was that planned, too?”
“Not really,” he whispers back. “I just— kind of went for people I knew wouldn’t work out,” Beomgyu informs Kai. “Sorry.”
“I’m not mad at you, Beomgyu,” Kai says. “I was. Don’t get me wrong, I was– I was hurt and angry.”
“I know,” Beomgyu barely whispers. “I know, and I’m–”
“Stop apologising,” Kai almost pleads. His eyes pierce right into Beomgyu’s soul. “If you apologise it’s as if–” he cuts himself off, thinking over his next words carefully. “It’s like you did it without reason.”
Beomgyu opens his mouth to argue against that, to reassure Kai that he had a reason. And yet, the words don’t come. He closes his mouth, staring at Kai nervously.
“Soobin told me,” Beomgyu says, nerves eating him from the inside. He looks away from Kai. “He called me after you left that night,” he mutters. “He told me that you were talking about me the whole date.”
“I was,” Kai confirms. Beomgyu lets out a breath. “Beomgyu, could you look at me?”
He bites on his lip, lifting his head to face Kai where he sits on Beomgyu’s bed.
“Can I show you something?” Kai asks, voice so gentle and Beomgyu feels so undeserving. But he’s selfish when it comes to Kai, so he nods his head, watching Kai settle the guitar on his lap and start playing.
And then he starts singing, the words far too unforgettable and definitely resembling the ones scribbled on the paper left on Beomgyu’s desk. Kai’s voice isn’t loud like it normally is when he sings at the bars or small halls. His voice is a delicate, fragile whisper that carries through Beomgyu’s bedroom and leaves him absolutely breathless. It’s admirable, how even now– especially now, Kai has the bravery to bare himself for Beomgyu like this.
Beomgyu stays quiet, even when Kai stops singing and the weak playing of the guitar fades into silence. He stays silent, even when Kai pushes the guitar to the side and waits for Beomgyu to speak. Even when Kai clears his throat, the overwhelming silence choking them both. When Kai quietly calls his name, the bravery chipping away into worry– into fear. Beomgyu closes his eyes, taking a choppy breath inwards and struggling to let it out.
“Why?” He asks Kai, voice so fragile it shocks them both.
Kai blinks at him, mouth open but it takes some time for the words to tumble out.
“Why… what?”
He stares at Kai. “Why… why now?” Beomgyu whispers. “Why me?”
“Beomgyu, do you love me?”
The question feels like a shock of cold water. He sits up straight, suddenly feeling too rigid and too panicked. Beomgyu stares at Kai, eyes wide, heart stuttering.
“You’re my best friend,” he tells Kai.
“Is that all?”
Beomgyu blinks at Kai, searches his eyes and then shakes his head weakly.
“Why now? Beomgyu,” Kai sighs. “We can’t ignore it now. Why you?” Beomgyu waits on a bated breath for Kai’s answer. “Beomgyu, you’re my best friend. You’re– you’re my person.”
“What about the dates?” Beomgyu asks, unable to stop himself from asking, unable to just give in to Kai now after all these years. “What about– what about all the other people?”
“The others were distractions,” Kai admits honestly. “They were– that was me trying to forget about you like that. The dates… the dates were me trying to move on.”
“Kai,” Beomgyu whispers, shaking his head. “You’ve got to see how this looks to me,” he tries to reason. “I– I’ve been in love with you ever since I had been able to grasp the meaning of love,” Beomgyu finally admits. The realisation dawns upon Kai visibly, his head snapping up to stare at Beomgyu, eyes deep and imploring with the same emotion in Beomgyu’s voice. He clears his throat. “Since we were fifteen,” Beomgyu adds on needlessly.
“That long?” Kai sounds surprised, like he had never expected it. Beomgyu tries not to flinch at the words.
“Maybe longer,” he whispers. “You coming here after– after I’ve seen you hook up with strangers, or– my classmates… forgive me if I’m struggling to wrap my head around it all.”
“Beomgyu–”
“And if Soobin telling you the truth, or him making you realise you were only talking about me– if those are things that made you think you might… you might like me back, then,” Beomgyu takes a pause, catches his breath. “I’m going to need more time. I can’t jump into it after more than five years of waiting.”
“Beomgyu, I have been in love with you since we left high school,” Kai says.
He looks at Kai with wide eyes, automatically shaking his head in disbelief. Kai stares at him sincerely, so painfully honest as he tries to explain himself.
“It’s– not as long as you,” he admits. “But since we graduated,” Kai nods his head. “That’s why I was so happy you didn’t go to university far away. I told myself that before you started university I’d tell you…”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Kai answers. “That was, like, two years ago… and I wasn’t so sure what I was feeling…” he tilts his head at Beomgyu curiously. “Why didn’t you?”
“I figured having you as my best friend was better than not having you at all,” Beomgyu says easily. He’s had those words on the tip of his tongue forever, always ready to spill them if Kai were to find out the truth. Constantly willing to tell Kai that he values their friendship before anything else. “And that– that night, I was going to tell you… but then you– you cried, Kai. And I figured I’d need you in my life forever, even if it was just as my best friend.”
“Oh,” Kai whispers. “Beomgyu, I love you,” he says breathlessly.
The words hit Beomgyu like a wave of relief. He gasps at the sound of them, looking at Kai carefully, eyes burning as the tears well up in them. Beomgyu gulps down the sob threatening to take over, sniffling loudly in the quiet room. He grips the material of his jeans tightly, scrunches them up between his fingers as he feels the words with their intended meaning for the first time ever.
He crosses the small space between his desk and the bed, sitting beside Kai shyly. Beomgyu looks at him again, biting his lip nervously.
“Can you say that again?” He requests sheepishly.
Kai smiles easily, an endeared chuckle breaking the tense air between.
“I love you, Beomgyu,” Kai says just as easily. “I am so in love with you. I see you in my everyday, I see you in the clouds. I hear you in the music, I– I love you so much.”
Beomgyu reaches for Kai’s face slowly, carefully. His hands hold Kai gently, briefly wondering if this is one of his cruel dreams. He smiles at Kai softly.
“Such precious feelings,” Beomgyu whispers, the words muttered like a secret to himself. He isn’t sure if Kai had heard them, but he doesn’t worry about it. Not when Kai is staring at Beomgyu like he is seeing him for the first time ever, like he is in love with him. Beomgyu sighs dreamily. “I love you back.”
Beomgyu hadn’t really let himself think too much about what kissing Kai would feel like. That was a dangerous territory his brain had never dared wander into. But feeling it now, feeling Kai’s warmth in its entirety as he presses his lips over Beomgyu’s so tenderly, it makes Beomgyu realise no amount of imagining would have ever lived up to it anyway. Kai is so, so careful. He holds Beomgyu’s face lightly, his long fingers keeping him in a gentle grip so Kai can press their lips together perfectly.
It takes Beomgyu a moment to understand the reality of the situation. He finds himself pulling away a few moments later, Kai’s breaths lingering over the skin of his cheeks as they don’t dare move any further apart as they catch their breaths. Beomgyu turns away then, the petty bashfulness creeping up to him as he hides his face in the palms of his hands. Kai chuckles from beside him, his hand reaching for Beomgyu’s wrist.
He tugs Beomgyu’s hands away from his face, reaching for his chin to tilt their faces close again. Beomgyu bites his lip, looking at Kai with shy eyes. Still, he acts on impulse and quickly presses his lips to Kai’s again– a childish, chaste touch that makes Kai fumble over whatever it was he was trying to say. Beomgyu smiles at him sweetly.
“Beomgyu,” Kai says, eyes twinkling as they stare at each other. “I think I know what date you should arrange for me next.”
Beomgyu smiles at Kai ridiculously. “Oh, really?” He asks, blinking at Kai innocently. “What might that be?”
“You see,” Kai goes on, his thumb caressing the skin over Beomgyu’s cheekbone as he speaks so softly. “There’s this guy I’m totally in love with. This guy who likes reading old romantic tragedy novels and even though he acts as if he’s better alone, he just wants to find love,” he whispers. “And I need you to find out if he’d want to go out with me.”
Beomgyu’s answer comes in the form of a breathtaking kiss that steals the air from Kai’s lungs and replaces it with the love that he’d been holding in his own for so long.