Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Please please please, Taehyun thinks as he passes yet another occupied table, please please please just one.

No luck. This floor is also full to burst with students.

Trying to reign in a frustrated scream, Taehyun turns around and heads for the stairs. There’s only the last floor of the library left to cover. Taehyun has already combed through the first two, looking for an empty seat to complete his graphs in—due today, someone please kill him—but the forces of the universe seem to have aligned today of all days to ensure Taehyun doesn’t have a place to work in his favourite library.

He climbs the stairs two at a time. On a good day, he would try to climb them three at a time because, well, he isn’t a weak bitch. But it probably wouldn’t be a good idea while trying to balance his coffee with his binder, his computer, and his jacket.

Now, Taehyun isn’t usually this disorganised, and he curses himself one more time as he opens the doors to the third floor.

He usually completes his assignments way ahead of time and has no problem keeping up with deadlines. He’s also got the library’s busiest hours memorised and has his visits perfectly scheduled around them. He hates being crammed in next to stressed out students who smell strongly of sweat, caffeine and hopeless despair.

And yet, here he is.

This is all Kai’s fault.

And Beomgyu’s. Somehow, everything is always Beomgyu’s fault one way or another.

The buzz of conversation on this floor is lower than on the first two, which gives Taehyun some hope. But as he starts down the aisles and only finds more occupied tables, that hope becomes smaller and smaller. Taehyun doesn’t come up here often, since he usually prefers to stay in a secluded corner on the first floor, with his friends scattered somewhere in the vicinity.

The lighting here is a little dimmer—probably due to the odd, almost maze-like distribution of the shelves, which block most of the light coming in from the windows.

He goes on, trying to find a table hidden between the aisles that people have overlooked, but after a while of only finding students passed out on their textbooks or staring blankly at their computers, he’s beginning to feel truly desperate. And lost. Whoever designed this place had clearly never heard of cosmos.

Kai owes him one for this, he decides. A big one.

Kai has a crush on someone—which normally wouldn’t be noteworthy, since Kai always has a crush on someone. Except apparently this time it was the most perfect senior, whom Kai was absolutely whipped for and who he claimed was completely out of his league.

The only thing worse than Kai with a crush is Kai being dramatic about a crush.

Beomgyu had introduced them last week at the party Taehyun didn’t go to because he had to study and, frankly, he just hadn’t wanted to. But he’d apparently missed something big because, according to Kai, he and Choi Soobin had an instant connection.

He takes a left between two shelves with no idea where he’s going and the grim determination of a desperate man.

The thing about Kai is that he doesn’t do things halfway, which is something that Taehyun normally loves and admires about him. When he likes someone, he dives into it headfirst, bottom of the pool deep. He’s a theatre major, and Taehyun has always thought that he approaches love the same way he approaches the stage—Kai needs to learn everything about a person to fully “immerse” himself: go to the places they go, eat the food they like, listen to the music they listen to. It’s like he is preparing for a role, except the role is love.

When they first met, Taehyun had thought it was dependent and clingy. Now he knows it’s just Kai being sweet and earnest. He also usually slips out of love like he slips out of character at the end of a play, so it’s all fine in the end.

Or it should have been, if it weren’t for the fact that this time Kai seemed more serious about it. Which is all well and good, and shouldn’t suppose a problem at all, except that apparently it is now mandatory for Taehyun to accompany him in every single one of his little quests of love.

Taehyun rounds another aisle and comes across a table of six with all its chairs taken and the entire surface covered in papers and empty coffee cups. A girl snaps awake when he comes up behind her and almost falls from her chair. A terrified looking first year stares at him with wide eyes. Taehyun had been trying not to scowl too much. He doesn’t seem to be succeeding. He bows in apology and continues his prowl.

As a good best friend and roommate, Taehyun had gone along to every Mission Choi Soobin (Kai’s idea) during this past week. Kai had insisted it was important, this time was different, I want you there with me, with his excited puppy eyes and soft cheeks, and what was Taehyun supposed to do, say no?

So Taehyun has been dragged all over campus to every spot Choi Soobin frequents. They’ve tried the guy’s favourite restaurants, his favourite ice-cream (thank god he at least didn’t like mint choco), they’ve listened to his favourite songs and even gone to the café he works at like a pair of stalkers. (When Taehyun had asked where Kai was getting all this information from, he’d simply shrugged and said Beomgyu. So that was another thing to add to Tahyun’s list of Beomgyu aggrievances).

And most of the time the guy wasn’t even there, so it’s not like Kai was getting anything out of it.

And, to make matters worse, all that gallivanting around had resulted in Taehyun forgetting his deadline entirely, meaning he now only has about three hours left to complete his graphs. And there are no fucking seats left.

Great.

This was not how he’d imagined his Thursday going.

Also, he’s pretty sure he’s passed this bookshelf at least twice. Yep, he is definitely lost.

He throws his head back and tries to take deep breaths. He’s normally amazing in a crisis and all his friends always praise his ability to keep a clear head in any situation, so he tries to channel that power now.

He notices the ceiling becomes slanted up ahead, which should indicate the end of this cursed floor.

Okay, he’ll just check there once and if there isn’t any luck, he’ll figure something out.

As he winds through more haphazardly put together shelves, he notices he is actually closer to one of the side walls than he’d first realised. Long lines of sunlight filter in from the windows through the books in the shelves.

He finally reaches a tall bookshelf, and behind it he finds paradise.

A perfect dark wooden table with four perfect dark wooden chairs, tucked between the bookshelf and the end wall, with a big window pouring golden light onto it like it’s the Holy Grail.

He can’t help the little almost-whimper of relief he lets out before he sets his things on the table. He stretches his arms—they’d been getting tired, maybe he should double his lessons at the gym…

“Excuse me,” a voice drawls, “you’re in my seat.”

Taehyun raises his head, startled. And promptly drops his jaw.

He’d been so glad to have finally found an unoccupied table that he hadn’t noticed the table wasn’t actually empty. A boy is already lounging in the chair closest to the window. His back is leaning against the wall, which makes him difficult to spot from where Taehyun had come in.

He’s got faded pink hair with grown black roots, tight jeans that accentuate his kilometric legs, a stylish black coat, and a scowl on his face.

And Taehyun knows that face.

Choi Yeonjun.

Taehyun isn’t the most social person, and he also isn’t very up to date with the gossip on campus, but even he knows Choi Yeonjun.

Or, rather, he only knows the things that others say about him. He’s a last year. He is insanely popular. People constantly post about him on the university’s Instagram page about campus crushes (which Taehyun only knows about thanks to Beomgyu), and they say he’s fucked half the school. People claim he was absent last year because he was in jail. They say he got involved in a gang, he’s dating two idols at the same time, he’d gone to North Korea and come back.

The rumours get more and more ridiculous the more people you ask, which is why Taehyun never bothers. Taehyun is the kind of person who only deals in facts.

He doesn’t even know the guy, why should he care?

Except now that same guy is openly glaring at him.

“Uh…” Taehyun says, eloquently. “Sorry, what?”

“You’re in my seat” Choi Yeonjun repeats. He uncoils himself from his position against the wall like a cat, linking his hands on the table and facing Taehyun head on. “Get another table.”

Taehyun frowns.

“All the other tables are full. And I’m not trying to take your seat, I’m just trying to sit on one of the other three free seats on this table.”

Choi Yeonjun smiles at him, and it looks sweet like the edge of a knife.

“I don’t care. This is my table. Go sit somewhere else.”

Now, usually Taehyun is perfectly polite to strangers, but only if they are polite back and if he doesn’t happen to be stressed out of his mind.

“No.” He says as he sits down as far away from the other as possible.

Yeonjun straightens back. Taehyun doesn’t know if he’s surprised or if he’s preparing to strike. “What do you mean ‘no’?”

Taehyun starts arranging his things on the table. “No, I’m not going to sit somewhere else, because there is nowhere else to sit. I told you.” He turns on his computer.

“Listen, kid, this is my spot-“

“I don’t see your name on it.” Honestly, who does this guy think he is? Taehyun just wants to finish this assignment and go home to sleep for ten hours.

“Maybe the fact that I’m sitting alone while all the other tables are full means that I want to be, oh, I don’t know, alone.”

“Then you shouldn’t be sitting in a public space.” If Choi Yeonjun thought he was gonna beat him with logic, he was sorely mistaken. Taehyun was great at logic. He opened the file that said Professor Lee--> Graphs.

“Are you stupid? Genuine question. If you don’t-“

“Listen” Taehyun says, finally facing him. Choi Yeonjun really is quite attractive—no wonder he’s so popular. Shame that he also seems like an asshole. “We could sit here arguing all day, or you could let me finish my assignment in peace. Because, frankly, I’ve had a shitty day, and if I don’t finish this in time, I’m this close to killing my dumb best friend and then myself. So if you don’t wanna be caught in the crossfire, I suggest we just sit here and ignore each other. Quietly.”

Choi Yeonjun observes him for a few moments, assessing him. People tend to assume that because Taehyun is quiet and soft-spoken, he doesn’t have a temper. Choi Yeonjun finally seems to come to a conclusion, even if his face remains impassive. He gives Taehyun a curt nod and slides back against the wall.

Taehyun suppresses a sigh of relief. Maybe Yeonjun isn’t a complete asshole, after all. He focuses on his screen and finally gets to work, determined to keep his word and ignore the other.

Taehyun is on his second year of mathematics, and he is quite happy with his choice of studies. He’s always been a good student, but he discovered pretty early on that, while most other subjects always ended up boring him, maths never did.

There was always a right answer in maths, no matter the kind of question you were asking. He likes that. He likes the question part and the answer part, and he wants to spend the rest of his life deciphering and studying things most people don’t want to bother with.

In other words, he is a nerd, and he’s pretty okay with it.

He’d chosen SNU because it had the best maths program in Korea, and with his grades, he’d had no problem getting in. Gwanak Campus had a great reputation, but it was almost 2 hours away from his parents’ house.  After a lot of discussion, he’d been able to convince them to let him live in the university’s dorms—like he said, Taehyun is amazing at logic.

But it was never about the distance, not really. Taehyun has always thought of himself as a very independent person, and he knew that if he wanted to truly grow into himself and reach his full potential, he had to do it on his own.

That’s how he met Kai, the first day he came to the dorms. They’d been paired together, and by the time Taehyun got to their room Kai had already unpacked and was waiting on one of the beds. “Hi, my name’s Huening Kai. Do you think they’ll let us get a pet snake?” And they’d been inseparable ever since.

They still haven’t succeeded in the snake thing, though. (They almost made it once: With Beomgyu’s help, they got one and hid it in Kai’s bag, and they almost made it to their room before they got caught. Now Daniel is happily living with Taehyun’s parents, who are not quite as happy).

He and Kai met Beomgyu on their first months here, at a party Kai dragged Taehyun to. Or rather, Beomgyu met them, because Beomgyu knows everyone. The three of them had hit it off straight away even though Beomgyu was a year older. And the rest, as they say, is history.

So, all in all, Taehyun is happy with his life here, even if he sometimes has to deal with a too-full library and territorial assholes.

“Why are you killing him?”

Taehyun blinks away from the screen. When he looks up, he sees that Yeonjun has a book in his hand, though he’s staring at Taehyun.

“Excuse me?” he asks.  His eyes hurt. His eyes always hurt when he’s looking at graphs. He rubs his hands over his face.

“Your best friend. You said you were going to kill your best friend and then yourself. The yourself part I get, but why them?” Yeonjun is watching him with a raised eyebrow, but his posture is still lazy, indolent, like he doesn’t really care. He’s got kinda intense eyes.

“Thanks for seeing why I’d wanna kill myself.” He says without heat. He looks at the clock in his computer—it’s already been more than an hour and he’s doing well, he can take a small break. “It’s kind of his fault that I’m stuck here, actually. And my own, for not being able to tell him no.”

Yeonjun makes an inquisitive noise, tilting his head but still making an effort to seem nonchalant.

“He’s got a crush on this… person.” Though most college students tend to be a bit more open minded about these kinds of things, he wouldn’t want to accidentally out Kai to a complete stranger. “He dragged me all over campus for them this week, and I didn’t have time to finish my assignment.”

Yeonjun scrunches his nose and leaves his book on the table. “Like, following them around?”

“Nah, just going to the places they like to feel closer to them.”

“That’s… sweet. Still feels kinda stalkery to me, though.” The corner of Yeonjun’s mouth ticks up a little. His lips look nice. Like, their shape. Is interesting

“Yes. Very stalkery.” Taehyun says seriously. “Extremely creepy. So creepy, in fact, that you should run away and leave this table to me.”

“Nice try. May I remind you that you’re the one who invaded my table?” Despite his words, Yeonjun’s smirk stretches wider.

Taehyun huffs. “It’s not your table. If you want to claim permanent ownership, you should take it up with the library administration”.

“Maybe I will,” Yeonjun  says, raising his chin like a haughty cat. “And, uh…” he rubs the back of his neck self-consciously, “sorry I yelled at you earlier. I was just being emo, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you like that.”

“Oh,” Taehyun feels his eyes widen. He hadn’t actually expected him to apologise. “No worries. And I’m sorry too, I guess. I also yelled at you a bit. I was just stressed, but that’s no excuse.”

Yeonjun waves a hand in the air to dismiss his apology. Taehyun hadn’t noticed before, but the sleeves of his coat are wide and silky, and when he moves his arms they follow him like waves. “Don’t worry about it. Does that mean you’re no longer stressed?

Taehyun thinks about it. “I am… not not stressed, but I only have one more graph to finish, so I think I’m getting there.”

“Ah, then I won’t bother you anymore. As you were.” Yeonjun flings his hand elegantly and takes up his book again.

“No, it’s fine-” Taehyun wouldn’t have minded to carry on with their conversation—Yeonjun was being nicer than he’d expected, he’d even apologised—, but he’s always been awkward with these things and he doesn’t know how to lift up the flow of a conversation once it dies off. Besides, Yeonjun is already back to his book—he probably doesn’t want to be bothered by a nerdy second year. He goes back to his graphs.

Forty minutes later, the graphs are finished and sent to his professor. Yeonjun is still reading his book, though he’s moved to sit on the windowsill.

Taehyun checks his phone. 7:49. He should text Kai to let him know where he is—Taehyun usually comes home earlier on Thursdays and Kai will probably be wondering where he is. He stretches his arms above his head and hears his spine crack (is he getting older? Do those 6 months really make a big difference, like Kai says?). He twists his neck to the side to check if that cracks too, and sees Yeonjun watching him.

There’s a pause where they just stare at each other. Yeonjun is the first to recover.

“Are you done?” he asks in a disinterested tone.

“Uh, yeah. Finally.” He huffs out a laugh. “Goodbye stress.” Goodbye stress? Who says that? Certainly not cool guys like Yeonjun.

But Yeonjun just smiles. “If only it were that easy. By the way, what’s your name? I can’t believe we spent almost three hours together and I still don’t know your name.”

“It’s not like we did it willingly.” Taehyun says, and then realises how that sounds. “Not that I hated it or anything, or that I wouldn’t want to spent time with you willingly, it’s just that with what happened before- like, yeah, sorry,” He grimaces awkwardly. “My name’s Kang Taehyun.”

Yeonjun is still smiling, but not like he’s laughing at him. He looks almost endeared. “Hello, Taehyun-ssi. My name’s Choi Yeonjun.”

“I know.” Taehyun says before he can stop himself. He immediately wants to slap a hand over his mouth.

Yeonjun raises a perfectly delineated eyebrow. “You know?” he asks.

“I just meant that I’ve seen you around. On Campus.”

Yeonjun narrows his eyes. “Oh, yeah? And what have you seen me doing?”

Taehyun blanks. Suddenly he can’t remember a single instance he’s seen Yeonjun in his life, even though he’s sure they’ve crossed paths a couple times. He gives up. This can’t be more embarrassing than it already is.

 “You’re popular,” Taehyun shrugs awkwardly. “People find you interesting and talk about you. I guess I just know your name from that.”

“Oh, people talk about me, how wonderful. And, pray tell, what things do they talk about?”

Yeonjun’s angry, Taehyun realises with a start. His smile looks different from a minute ago. This one looks like the saccharine sweet knife from when Taehyun first sat down. He’s clearly misstepped, and he doesn’t even know how.

“Uh, I don’t know. I don’t really listen to rumours. I’m kind of what you’d call a hermit, “he shrugs, “and when I do go out people quickly get bored of telling me when they see I’m not paying attention.” He scratches the back of his head. “Um, I guess if you really wanted to know what they say, you could ask Beomgyu hyung? He always knows this kind of stuff.”

Yeonjun is silent for a beat, watching him. Taehyun can’t really read his face, and his stare is starting to make him uncomfortable.

“Choi Beomgyu?” Yeonjun finally asks. “You know him?”

“Oh. Yeah, we’re friends. Do you- ah, of course you know hyung.” Choi Beomgyu, knower of all things, acquaintance of all beings. Taehyun is a little thrown by the change in topic, but he decides to just go with it. “How did you meet Beomgyu hyung?” he asks.

Yeonjun leans back against the windowpane, and it’s not until this moment that Taehyun realises how tense Yeonjun had been holding himself a second ago.

“He studies Fine Arts too, though he’s in Painting and I’m in Design. We run in a lot of the same circles.

“You study design? That’s so cool, you must like it a lot.” Taehyun wouldn’t last a day in Design because, basically, his sense of fashion is a trashcan on fire. A very boring trashcan on fire with stripes and squares all over the place. But he can see it on Yeonjun—his pants are simple but fit like a glove, his coat shimmies and moves like it’s got a mind of his own, and his hair, despite its long black roots, looks intentionally dishevelled and nice.

“It’s very cool, and I love it, even if it sometimes makes me want to throw myself out the window.”

“Please don’t.” Taehyun says, with a pointed glance to the window at Yeonjun’s back. “There are no witnesses here—people would think I murdered you.”

Yeonjun laughs, a short ‘ha’ that makes Taehyun’s fingers twitch where they rest on the table. He wants to hear it again. He wants to be the one to make it happen again.

“That would be unfortunate”, Yeonjun says. “What if I wrote a note saying it was all me?”

“They’d think I put it on you to cover my tracks.” Taehyun says immediately.  “I’d have to involve my roommate for a plausible alibi, and he’s a terrible liar. Even though he should be great at it, given he’s a literal actor.”

“Your roommate?”

“The best friend with a crush”

“Ah, he gets more infamous by the second. Now I kinda wanna meet him.” Yeonjun’s eyes twinkle, and Taehyun can’t stop smiling, even if he’s trying to maintain a poker face for the sake of the alleged murder story. It’s just so easy to talk with Yeonjun. Taehyun isn’t usually like this in a first meeting. He doesn’t know what’s happening.

“Kai’s great,” he nods. “But he’ll probably try to convince you to get a snake, so you should prepare yourself for that.”

Yeonjun tilts his head with a confused frown. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Taehyun shrugs. “Snakes are pretty cool.”

Yeonjun squints at him suspiciously. “Do you have a snake?”

Taehyun sighs. He’s still mad about the snake thing. “We tried. Beomgyu hyung helped us sneak it into the dorm, but we got caught. He’s living with my parents now.”

Yeonjun throws his head back and laughs. Taehyun feels great. And kind of restless, like he wants to do something, even if he doesn’t know what. When Yeonjun looks at him again, Taehyun is scratching the surface of the table to get rid of the weird itch.

“You are nothing like I expected, Kang Taehyun-ssi”. There’s still a lingering smile in the corners of his eyes. He looks so different from the boy Taehyun met just a few hours ago.

He doesn’t know how to respond to Yeonjun’s comment, so he just says “Thanks? And you can drop the formalities, I’m not really a fan,” he clarifies with a scrunch of his nose.

“You’re very welcome,” Yeonjun says graciously. “And, in that case, you can also call me hyung. It’s only fair.”

“Okay, …Hyung.” It’s always a little awkward for him to call someone hyung or noona for the first time, but he likes the sound of it on his tongue.

Yeonjun starts to say something else, but Taehyun’s phone goes off at that moment. He jumps and looks at the screen. Kai. Oh. He’d completely forgotten he’d wanted to text him. He looks at the time and sees that it’s well past eight. It’s not exam season, so the library must be closing soon, too. Shit, no wonder Kai’s worried.

He looks up at Yeonjun. “Sorry, I have to…”

“Sure, go ahead.”

He picks up. “Kai? Yeah, sorry, I’m at the library. Yeah. I know. Yeah, I know, I’m sorry, I’m on my way. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” He hangs up and begins to pack his things. “Sorry, I should go, my roommate- ” he says to Yeonjun, but when he looks up he sees that he’s already hopped off the windowsill and is putting his book in his back pocket.

“Don’t worry, I should go too,” Yeonjun says. He starts rounding the table, but when he reaches the end, he turns around and gives Taehyun a two-finger salute while walking backwards. “I’ll see you later, Taehyun.”

And then he’s gone, like he was never there at all.

Taehyun is left alone under the fluorescent lights, clutching the strap of his bag tightly with his two hands.

“Yeah, see you,” he says, to no one in particular.

Chapter Text

“Hold this.”

Taehyun whips his head around so fast an air pod almost falls out of his ear. He adjusts it and lowers his arm just in time to grab the bag shoved onto his chest.

“Wha-“

He then sees that someone has fallen in step beside him, and he’s almost hit in the face with a flip of red hair. Chaeryong. Of course.

Lee Chaeryong is the closest thing to an academic rival Taehyun has. She’s in a lot of his classes—including Number Theory, where he’s headed to now—and she’s one of the smartest people he’s ever met. She’s driven, and relentless, and she tackles mathematical problems with a passion he can recognise in himself. She also (not so) secretly terrifies him to death.  

As a general rule, he doesn’t tend to pay much attention to his classmates, but Chaeryong is the only one who provides a bit of competition for him in their year. They take turns being the top of their classes, and he’s pretty sure her GPA is near perfect. He doesn’t know why she’s in his year when she’s a year older, seeing as she’s practically a genius, but she’s never told him, and he’s never asked.

He just calls her noona and bickers with her about math theory. And, because of the whole terrified to death thing, he often carries her things around for her.

Like right now, for example.

“This is heavy, noona.” He complains, even though he knows it’ll get him nowhere. He adjusts the bag in his arms.

“Don’t be a baby. What are all those hulky muscles of yours for?” She’s braiding her hair at her nape, a couple of pins stuck between her teeth. “Are you saying they’re just for show?”

The problem with Chaeryong is that she knows him too well. She knows that he’s way too competitive and that he’ll do anything if it’s presented as a challenge.

“These muscles could drop your bag any minute now, noona,” he reminds her.

She gives him a slow smile. “You wouldn’t.”

No, Taehyun wouldn’t, but only because he values his life too much (and not at all because Chaeryong’s ancient computer—barely holding on to life via duct tape and the grace of god—is inside and he doesn’t want to break it, no, of course not).

So he just sighs and says, “It’s not like you’re not fit enough to do it yourself, noona. You do all those dance covers all the time,” in that tone he uses when he’s not whining, shut up Beomgyu.

Chaeryong finishes tying her braid in a knot at the base of her skull. Taehyun will never understand how long hair works. The concept just…eludes him.

“My dance covers are great and I look amazing doing them, but they unfortunately do not provide an extra pair of hands while I’m doing my hair,” she says. Taehyun wants to point out that her hands are free now, but he bites his tongue in time. “By the way, what did you think about the reading for today?”

Taehyun looks up and thinks about her question before answering. “I don’t really agree with the whole premise, but the way it managed to get around mentioning infinite sets was compelling. I just don’t think calling them “integer sets” works as well.”

Chaeryong scoffs. “You don’t like it because you like your answers to fit neat and tidy in a single box. Sometimes there are answers outside of that box too, you know. Two truths can refer to the same thing.”

“Thank you so much, I didn’t know that, noona,” Taehyun says in that fake sweet-dongsaeng tone he knows she hates.

“Whatever.” She flips her invisible hair. “ Let’s see how well you do on the questionnaire about it. Tell me if you need help, I know integer rings can sometimes be too much for you.” She pats his shoulder with that face of mock consolation she’s perfected. It never fails to make him feel like a child.

Taehyun hates being left with words still waiting on his tongue, but Chaeryong is already walking ahead on the path. Pff, like her tiny legs can outrun him. Kai may call him his ‘pocket-sized friend’, but that’s just because Kai is a giant and should not count as reference. Taehyun is quite tall, thank you very much, and his legs can cover twice as much as normal people’s—he uses them to surpass her, still holding her bag against his chest.

And, just like that, he and Chaeryong spend the rest of the way to class pretending they’re not trying to outrun each other like a pair of petty schoolboys.

The door clicks shut behind him, and Taehyun lets out a sigh of relief.

 Today was a bad day. Not quite awful, not quite terrible, but bad enough that Taehyun is glad to be back in his own room.

He drops his bag near the entrance and flops down on his bed. It’s not a very big room—Taehyun only has to walk a few paces to reach his side, with his bed pushed against the wall and a small desk in the corner, a mirror of Kai’s side. They both share a wardrobe, though they do have separate bedside tables and drawers.

The thing that elevates this room a hundred times above the one they got last year, however, is the bathroom. Once it became clear that he and Kai both wanted to keep sharing a room, they put their savings together and applied for a double with a private bathroom. Taehyun thanks heaven for it every single day.

All in all, it may not be much, but it’s home. It’s the place Taehyun can retreat to when the outside world gets to be too much. Taehyun is the kind of person who can be out and about all day, no problem, but only if he has the promise of his own private space waiting for him at the end of the day (Kai doesn’t count).

He buries his face deeper into the pillows and tries not to think. Which, him being who he is, is practically impossible. It’s not like anything particularly bad happened today—he just went to classes in the morning, studied for an upcoming test after lunch and tutored an Engineering first year in the afternoon. A regular, one in a thousand kind of day.

It’s only that…

It’s only that Professor Byeong started talking about the electives they’d have to choose for next year, and how they should already be thinking of picking a specific field to focus on. It’s good advice, and she’s absolutely right, but Taehyun just… doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know what he wants, or what the best option would be.

The problem is that Taehyun is interested in everything. If he likes every single thing about mathematics, how is he supposed to pick only one? What if he chooses to specialise in a something and then regrets it? What if he gets stuck doing something that doesn’t fulfil him for the rest of his life?

 He’s run the equation of his future a million times in his head, and so far he’s always gotten the same answer: He wants to keep studying numbers all his life, he wants to not be alone in his personal life and to not disappoint anyone, and he wants to be happy. But what does that really look like? He can only see the general picture, but anything beyond that escapes him.

He groans and rolls over to look at the ceiling. Is this how other people feel all the time? Because this sucks. Taehyun is used to always knowing who he is and what he wants, even when it’s things that make him cringe.

He knew pretty early on that he was going to be a mathematician, like Gauss or Euler—he’s always wanted to make a difference with his research, and he knew he was hard-working and passionate enough to make it. He’s also known since he was a kid that he sometimes makes people uncomfortable, with his big calculating eyes and pointed statements. Hell, he even knew he liked boys when he was only 7 years old.

Once he knows what he wants, nothing can stop him from going after it, slowly but surely. When he knew he wanted to spend his life researching mathematics, he worked hard to get into the best maths program in Korea. When he knew he wanted to experience what sex was all about, he found a couple of willing partners when he entered university.

Simple as that.

Except apparently not, because here he is, revaluating his entire existence eat 9 p.m. on a random Tuesday, because how can he accomplish something if he doesn’t even know what he wants to accomplish?

Not even the things he thought he did well turned out how he expected them to. He’s halfway through a top-line university with no idea what he wants to do with his life and his last two sexual arrangements—the only ones he’s ever had—fell through because Taehyun was unable to read what his partners wanted.

The first one of those had been Yunho, and Taehyun had thought they were both on the same page. Until Yunho had started talking about taking things to the next step and Taehyun didn’t know how to respond. He’d never had a serious relationship before, too focused on his studies to even consider it. And Yunho was hot, and nice, but Taehyun had never thought of him as anything more. It had simply never figured in any of Taehyun’s calculations, so he was wholly unprepared for it and could only formulate a lame “sorry” as an answer. Yunho had quickly cut it off after that.

The thing with Hyunjin had happened last semester. He was an Art major Beomgyu had introduced him to—they’d hooked up at the party of one of Beomgyu’s friends, and then a few times after that over the course of two months. This time, when Hyunjin had asked what they were, Taehyun was ready, and he suggested they should be boyfriends. It seemed like the most logical conclusion—he liked Hyunjin, and after the Yunho fiasco he’d put a lot of thought into what being in a relationship would be like. And he’d decided it was the sensible thing to do to experience a more committed relationship at this point in his life. He hadn’t wanted to be one of those guys who are incapable of committing to something more serious when it comes to their emotions. And Hyunjin was great. Taehyun liked him more and more every time they met.

So he and Hyunjin had gone out for a few months, and Taehyun had thought everything was going fine, except one afternoon Hyunjin had come to his room when Kai was out, his pretty face all blotchy red and scrunched with anguish. He told Taehyun he couldn’t do this anymore. “Sometimes I can’t read you at all,” he’d said, close to tears. “You look at me, and I can’t even tell if you care about me at all. It’s like I could be anybody. Do you even like me?” And Taehyun had had no idea where it was all coming from. He did care about Hyunjin, and he did like him. He’d thought that even if he wasn’t always the best at expressing it, Hyunjin had known anyways. Apparently, he’d been wrong.

Hyunjin had broken up with him that same afternoon, despite Taehyun’s attempts to assure him he cared about him and his promises to do better (even if he hadn’t quite known where exactly he’d gone wrong). Kai found him hours later staring blankly at the floor, sitting on his bed on the same spot Hyunjin left him in. He hadn’t even been able to cry, which only made it more apparent to Taehyun how weird and fucked up he was.

So, no, he didn’t know anything about anything, and he clearly never had, no matter what he’d liked to believe when he was younger. How was it possible that he knew more about himself at 17 than at 21?

He comes back to reality when he hears the key card at the door, and turns his head to the side to watch Kai come in and take off his shoes, effectively interrupting Taehyun’s pity party.

“Hey! Yuqi brought mantou today, and they are sooo good. Want some?”

Oh, that’s right, Kai had his theatre group meeting today. Taehyun drags himself up from the bed to take the box Kai is offering—because he’s a university student and he is physically incapable of turning down free food, no matter the level of wallowing he’s indulging in—, but Kai draws his hand back and leans in closer to peer into Taehyun’s face.

“Hey!” Taehyun complains. Those mantou look amazing and, frankly, he deserves a treat. He pouts at Kai, but he doesn’t relent.

“What’s wrong with you?” he says, gesturing at the entirety of Taehyun. “Why do you look like that?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.” He reaches forward to try to take the box from him, but Kai takes a step back with his long legs.

“Nuh huh. You’re not getting any mantou until you tell me what’s wrong!”

“I told you, it’s nothing.” He grabs Kai’s arm and drags him forward to try to wrestle the mantou from him. Kai resists, but he ends up falling on top of Taehyun from the momentum. Kai may be taller, but Taehyun is stronger. Kai tries to escape and holds the box away from his body, but Taehyun overpowers him and manages to pin him down and sit on his belly. Kai goes down screeching like an unhinged little goblin, calling for help and asking for mercy. Taehyun has to cover his mouth with his hand—one of these days their neighbours are going to call campus security on them, he swears to god.

Taehyun finally manages to wrestle the box from him and starts happily eating mantou. He doesn’t move from Kai’s lap—he deserves it, for almost leaving Taehyun deaf with his ear-piercing screams.

“No, but seriously, are you okay?” Kai says from beneath him. He doesn’t look very bothered with their position. “You looked like a sad little lemur when I came in.”

Taehyun sighs and finishes the last mantou. They really were delicious. He’s only met Yuqi a couple times when he’s gone backstage after one of Kai’s plays, but he’ll have to thank her the next time he sees her. She just singlehandedly improved his day.

He rolls to the side and kicks Kai out of his bed, who falls down screaming. Taehyun stares up at the ceiling so he doesn’t have to look at his friend as he says “Do you think I’m a failure?”

Kai’s mess of blond hair emerges again over the edge of the bed. “What! No! You are my best friend, and you’re super smart, and super talented, and super passionate. Who said that to you?? I’ll beat them up!” He’s got a frown on his face, and he looks like an angry puppy. Taehyun can’t help but smile.

“No one.” He sighs again and the smile falls from his face. “It’s just that I have to start thinking about what classes to pick for next year, and what focus do I want to give my future career, and I just don’t know. Every decision feels like a fuck-up. Like everything else in my life.” He puts his face in his hands to hide from the world.

He thinks about Professor Byeong and the list of electives for next year. He thinks about Yunho and Hyunjin. For some reason, Yeonjun’s face pops into his mind. He’s probably going to be an amazing, famous designer when he finishes his degree, and he’ll have a successful career and hundreds of people who will adore him. He will also probably have a beautiful partner by his side to adore him. He had this aura when Taehyun met him, like life goes out of its way just to please him.

He realises with a start that he never told Kai about his meeting with Yeonjun. It’s been almost a week, and this is the kind of thing he would usually tell Kai the moment after it happened. He doesn’t know why he hasn’t, and that’s even weirder. He opens his mouth to tell him, but Kai is already patting his leg comfortingly and launching on a motivational speech about all of  Taehyun’s accomplishments and merits.

Taehyun listens to him, feeling a bit like he’s being forcefully trampled by a truck of love. By the time Kaiis done, Taehyung is mostly left experimenting a mix between fondness and mild exasperation at his terrible metaphors, but he does feel a little better.

Kai leaves him to go shower with a last effusive hug—through which Taehyun threatens violence but secretly enjoys— and Taehyun only remembers that he wanted to tell Kai about Yeonjun once he is under the covers of his bed listening to the shower run in the bathroom.

He feels a knot of guilt form in his stomach, but sleep already has its claws on him and is rapidly dragging him under. He’ll tell him tomorrow, he promises himself. Tomorrow.

And then he doesn’t remember anything else.

Taehyun licks his spoon clean and then uses it to move the cereal around in his bowl.  It’s been a couple of days since he promised himself to tell Kai he met Yeonjun. It’s not a big deal, so he doesn’t know why he hasn’t talked to him yet. It’s not like it’s a secret, or like Taehyun particularly wants to hide it. It’s just that he…hasn’t. And he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t like not knowing the why of things.

He should tell Kai, like a fun little anecdote, because they tell each other everything. Talking with Yeonjun had been nice once they got past all the snapping comments. Taehyun doesn’t usually feel so free while talking to a virtual stranger for the first time—but with Yeonjun he hadn’t felt like he had to hold himself back, or like he was stumbling all over a conversation like a clumsy elephant. It had just been fun, and simple, and he’s been holding the memory close to his chest for the last few days, like a small ball of sunlight.

Oh. That’s it.

He hasn’t told Kai because he wanted to turn it over in his mind and analyse it by himself. At least for a while. But now that he’s done that, and that he’s discovered the reason why he hasn’t told Kai, he can finally tell him. And he can finally stop feeling guilty about it.

“So,” he says, putting the spoon down in his bowl “you know who I met the other day?”

“Mmh, no. Who?” Kai is sitting in his dinosaur-onesie pajamas in front of him, eating Oreo cereal straight out of the box. Taehyun doesn’t know where he got it from. They don’t even sell Oreo cereal at the dorm cafeteria. “Was it an alien?”

“What? No. Why would it be an alien?”

“I don’t know. Beomgyu hyung says the reason people seem weirder lately is because aliens have been sending down clones to learn human behaviour.” Kai munches loudly on his cereal. “Maybe you met one.”

“No, it definitely wasn’t an alien. One, because they don’t exist, and two, because even if they did, they wouldn’t come to Gwanak-gu, Seoul.”

“Mmmh, you have a point. They’re all probably in America.”

“But that’s not what I was talking about,” Taehyun says.

“Oh, right! Who did you meet?”

Taehyun takes a sip of water before answering. “Yeonjun hyung.”

“Huh?”

“Choi Yeonjun,” Taehyun clarifies, and waits for it to click. Kai’s eyes widen comically when it does, and he leans forward to whisper loudly at Taehyun, like any of the half-asleep students around them care about what he’s saying.

“The really hot, really mysterious Choi Yeonjun??”

“Yeah.” Taehyun eats more cereal. It really was a good idea to tell Kai. He feels better already.

“Dude!” For some reason, it’s very funny when Kai says ‘dude’. He slaps his own knee for emphasis. “He’s like, really cool! And really tall!” Kai makes a considering noise. “I don’t think he’s taller than me, though. But he’s definitely taller than you.” He cackles.

“Hey!” Taehyun waves his spoon threateningly. “What did we say, no height puns before breakfast or I’ll punch you.”

“We’re technically during breakfast right now,” Kai mumbles, but when Taehyun raises his fist menacingly, he complies, laughing. “Okay, okay.”

Taehyun goes back to eating. It’s not after-breakfast until he finishes, damn it.

“But wait, wait,” Kai continues, “Where did you even meet him? You haven’t been to a party without me, have you?” Kai clutches his chest in mock offense. He’s so dramatic.

Taehyun rolls his eyes. “No, you big baby. I met him in the library. He was at the table I sat at.”

“Taehyun,” Kai lays his hand on top of his on the table and looks him kindly in the eyes, like one would a kid. Which Taehyun thinks is rich coming from a dinosaur, by the way. “You know that cool people don’t go to the library, right?”

Taehyung shakes him off and threatens more violence while Kai cackles again. The students around their table are starting to give them the stink eye.

“What do you mean he doesn’t go to the library, he was there, I saw him.” He knows it’s not his strongest argument, but Kai has the curious ability of making him forget all his rhetoric and turning him into a petulant child.

“No, no no no no, my dear Taehyun-ssi. Cool people don’t go to the library. It’s forbidden. Are you really sure it wasn’t one of the alien clones you saw?”

“No. It was him.” Taehyun has to suppress the urge to say I saw him again. His eye twitches.

Kai narrows his eyes. “Was he studying?”

“No? I think he was reading most of the time.”

Kai does a grand gesture with the hand that’s not buried in the Oreo box, as if to say see? “Cool people don’t study in the library. Thesis proven.”

“That’s not a thesis, that’s a dumb statement you just made up. And you didn’t say anything about studying before,” he protests. “Besides, you can’t say proven when you haven’t actually, like, presented any evidence!” Taehyun’s spoon waving is back with a vengeance, and the girl at the table closest to them quietly slides out of its trajectory. Neither of them notices.

Kai is pointing at Taehyun’s chest. “I just did! My evidence is that he was reading, not studying. Voilà! Cool people don’t study in the library. Puff! Proven.”

“Your only evidence for your dumb argument doesn’t have anything to do with your thesis! Why is reading suddenly cooler than studying?”

“Because Soobin hyung reads, and Soobin hyung is perfect and cool,” Kai says with a straight face. Taehyun wants to strangle him.

“That’s not a valid argument, that’s just a subjective opinion.” Taehyun slurps a mouthful of cereal from the fearsome spoon in order calm down.

“Just because it’s subjective, it doesn’t mean it’s not true,” Kai says with an air of finality. Taehyun almost chokes on his cereal in his haste to protest such a fundamentally wrong statement. Just before he can, though, a tray falls down beside him on the table.

“Well, aren’t we lively this morning,” Beomgyu says as he sits down.

“Beomgyu!” Kai beams.

“It’s ‘hyung’ to you, you overgrown dino” Beomgyu says, but he reaches over the table to ruffle Kai’s hair. “So,” he says as he sits back down, “what are we talking about?”

“Nothing.” Taehyun says, at the same time that Kai says, “Alien clones”.

“Ah, nothing and alien clones. My two favourite topics.” Beomgyu’s tray is filled to the brim with a bunch of gyeranmaris, though Taehyun has no doubt in his friend’s ability to finish them all. Beomgyu becomes a vacuum cleaner when he eats, which is something that Taehyun both admires and fears.

“It’s really nothing,” he says.

“No, it’s not!” Kai exclaims. He turns to Beomgyu to tell him, with clear delight, “Taehyun said he met a cool guy in the library, and I told him that’s impossible, because cool guys don’t go to the library.”

“Mmh, true, that’s why I never go.” Beomgyu swallows an entire gyeranmari.

Taehyun snorts. “Hyung, I’ve literally gone with you to the library like, a million times, but okay.”

Beomgyu kicks him under the table, only for Taehyun to kick him back even harder. He’s been doing a lot of leg exercises lately, on top of his boxing lessons, so he’s very proud of his leg strength.

Once Beomgyu recovers, he straightens up again. “Anyways. What cool guy? Do I know him?” He clasps his hands together like an excitable-, well, Beomgyu. There’s really no better way to describe him. “Was he cute?”

The question is directed at Taehyun, but it’s Kai who answers, widening his eyes. “Very cute, very hot”.

This time Taehyun’s kick is aimed at Kai, who unfortunately sees it coming and shoves his long legs out of the way, giggling some more.

“Oh?” questions Beomgyu, shoving two gyeranmaris into his mouth and talking around them, because he’s a disgusting little gremlin who talks with his mouth full. “Hot cute boys are my even more favouritest topic.”

“That sentence didn’t make any sense, hyung,” Taehyun says. Beomgyu sticks his tongue out at him, and he sees that it’s still got bits of egg on it. Gross.

“So, who’s the mysterious guy our precious Taehyunie has a crush on?”

Taehyun draws back. “I do not-“

“You do!” Beomgyu interrupts him. “See, your little ears got red. Cute.”

“I do not. Stop it. If they’re red it’s because you are being embarrassing. I met him once-“

“Choi Yeonjun!” Kai cuts in, who’s clearly been dying to share this information. “It’s Choi Yeonjun!”

Beomgyu blinks slowly. “Choi Yeonjun? You mean the Choi Yeonjun??” His voice is steadily growing in volume. Taehyun fears this will be the day they finally get kicked out of the cafeteria. “MY Choi Yeonjun???”

“Yes. Will you stop screaming, please?” Taehyun pulls him down by the arm from where he’d started to get up from his chair. “I think even the food ahjumma heard you, hyung.”

“You know him too?” Kai wiggles in his seat. “That’s great! Friends of friends are always better!”

“Yeah, he’s in my department. Hyung’s really talented. And hot. And nice, when he wants to be.” Beomgyu turns to Taehyun with a look of extreme suspicion. “Why was he talking to you? You are not cool.”

“Your face is not cool”, Taehyun replies. Not his best comeback, admittedly, but the word ‘cool’ is starting to lose meaning in his brain, and he can feel a headache building behind his eyes. He’s really starting to regret having this conversation with these two.

This always happens to him. He always lets himself get dragged into his friends’ shenanigans, getting tangled in a mess of dumb arguments punctuated by random bursts of gratuitous violence. Why, why does he never learn??

Because you love them, a voice whispers at the back of his mind. Shut up, he tells the voice. That’s embarrassing, and you’re not helping.

“Listen, he was just sitting at the only empty table in the library, so I sat next to him and we talked for a bit. End of story.”

“Mmh, sure, okay,” Beomgyu says. “So you had such a good time that now you’re irreparably in love with hyung.”

“What? No-“

“You were blinded by his beauty and his sexy bad boy aura, and now you wanna get married and have his children.” Beomgyu nods his head a few times with a self-satisfied smirk. “Yup, yup, checks out.”

“Will you stop being so weird?” Taehyun shoves Beomgyu away, and he has to catch himself on the chair next to him to not fall down, laughing maniacally all the way. Kai joins him in his teasing laughter. “I’m never telling you guys anything ever again.”

“Noooo, Taehyunie, we’re just kidding.” Kai says, with that sweet, beaming face it’s impossible to get mad at. “I’m sure it was nice. And, hey, you made a friend!”

“Yeah, it’s not like that happens too often.” Beomgyu is wise enough to push his chair out of Taehyun’s range after that comment.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Taehyun says, turning to Kai. “He just talked to me because of the situation. I doubt it’ll happen again.”

“Mmh, we’ll see.” Beomgyu rubs his invisible beard and puts on a ridiculous old-man voice. “Life works in mysterious ways.”

 Kai throws him a piece of Oreo cereal and he catches it with his mouth. “Anyways,” he continues, “let’s talk about something more interesting. Like, for example, me.” He beams. “Guess who got invited to a party next Friday.”

“Mm, I don’t know, Kai?” Taehyun says, because he finds annoying Beomgyu delightful.

“No,” Beomgyu pouts, though he immediately brightens up when he says, “Me!”

“That’s great, hyung!” Kai says, who has an angelical smile on his face even while he follows it up with, “But don’t you go to a party, like, every week?”

“He spends more time in parties than he does in class,” Taehyun confirms while he drinks the last of the milk left in his bowl.

“Ya!” Beomgyu yells. “See if I ever invite you guys to anything ever again, brats. Now I don’t want to tell you why this party is special or why I specifically wanted you to come.” He sulks in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest in a clear ploy to get attention. Which, unfortunately, is not completely ineffective.

Taehyun nudges Beomgyu’s foot under the table conciliatorily. “We’re just kidding, hyung. C’mon, tell us.”

“Yeah, tell us!” Kai gives the Oreo box to Beomgyu as his own peace offering. Beomgyu shoves a handful of tiny Oreos in his mouth, despite the fact that he just annihilated a mountain of gyeranmari on his own.

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” he says, trying to sound dignified, but the effect is drastically ruined by the dark crumbs dotting his chin. “So I was in Studio 4 the other day, minding my own business, doing a project for a class, which I go to,” he cuts a pointed glare at Taehyun, “and I was talking with Chaeyoung—you know, cute, tattoos, was at Chan’s last party—, and she said Juyeon and his lot are planning to throw a party to welcome the international students. She said they wanted a lot of people to come, so she invited me and told me to bring whoever I wanted.” He huffs, “Though I don’t know why I even bother with you two,”

“Noo, c’mon, I’m sure it’ll be fun,” Kai says. “But why are they welcoming international students now? Didn’t they get here at the start of the semester?”

Beomgyu shrugs. “Who cares, it’s an excuse just as good as any. But you’re not focusing on the important part!” He hits his fist on the table a few times.  “I said a lot of people are going to be there. And I mean a lot. From all departments.”

“So?” Taehyun asks. It’s not like that is much of an incentive for him.

“So, a birdie told me that a certain someone is going to be there. Someone whose name starts with S and ends with -oobin.”

Kai yelps a little, and Taehyun knows the battle is lost.

“But Soobin hyung never goes to parties!” Kai’s entire body is wiggling in excitement. “This is great! I can see him there, and talk to him, and look at his pretty dimples. I’m in!”

“Yeah, yeah. Now you’re interested.” Beomgyu rolls his eyes, but he looks fond. “But where are your thanks for the hyung that brought you this information?”

“Thank you, hyung-nim, I’ll be forever in your debt.” Kai does a mock formal bow with his arms over the table, and both Beomgyu and Taehyun laugh.

“You better!” Beomgy says, and then he turns to Taehyun. “And you, Mister Recluse? You didn’t come to the last one—you can’t leave us hanging this time, I’ll cry.” He opens his eyes comically wide, trying to look pitiful and puppy-esque, until Taehyun can see the wet patina of the white of his eyes. 

“You have to come,” Kai exclaims, doing a much better impression of a cute animal. “You’ve never met Soobin hyung, you need to meet him! And I’ll promise it’ll be fun, I’ll even team up with you on beer pong tournaments.”

Taehyun was already going to say yes—because he doesn’t want to be a spoilsport and because he actually enjoys spending time with his friends, even if he knows that Kai will be glued to Soobin all night and Beomgyu’s attention span is below zero at parties—but the beer pong offer is extra compelling. A beefy grad student called Jungkook beat him last time, and he’s been craving a rematch.

“Yeah, sure,” he says. “I’m in.”

Kai whoops and Beomgyu shakes his fist in the air triumphantly.

“Okay, I’ll text you the details once I know more,” Beomgyu says as he gets up. “I’ve got a class in, uh,” he checks his phone, “10 minutes on the other side of campus, so wish me luck.” He waves goodbye and stacks his empty tray on the trolley before he leaves. Despite what he said, he doesn’t seem to be in a rush as he walks out.

“We’re gonna have a great time, you’ll see,” Kai says, drawing Taehyun’s attention back to him. “I can’t wait for you to meet Soobin hyung”

“After all the stalking we did, I feel like I know him already,” he says. But he’s trying to keep an open mind, if only for the sake of his friends’ excitement. Maybe it really will be fun.

If there is one thing Taehyun loves, it’s being able to walk around campus in spring.

Gwanak-gu is an expansive, sprawling settlement burrowed in the belly of the mountains that surround it, green and wild on all sides. There are parks and ponds nestled between buildings, and little unkempt gardens that hang from their rooftops. You can find cafés and lounges to hang out in the winter, and a small winding river in the southern area to enjoy in the summer. There are at least five different libraries scattered between departments, a football field and a baseball field, a gym and a museum, and even a small cinema and a candy shop. Gwanak-gu is more like a small city then a university complex—self-sufficient and remote, lying in the middle of wild forests and mountains.

Having grown up in the grey hustle of Seoul, Taehyun loves it more fiercely than he ever thought he would.

And spring just makes everything sweeter—lush and green and blooming. So when Park Yujun, the Physics first year he tutors sometimes, asks him to meet in one of the picnic tables outside of Building 13, he readily agrees. Maybe it’s the soft scent of flowers in bloom, or the warm glow of the sun on his back while they go over her notes, or perhaps it’s the feeling of satisfaction after seeing Yujun’s improvements, but whatever it is, Taehyun ends up feeling more relaxed than he has in weeks.

When the tutoring session is over and they part ways, Taehyun considers going back to the dorms. He’s not even that far away—Building 13 is close enough that he probably wouldn’t even need to take the bus. But the sky is so blue, and the late April sun is warm but not yet suffocating. The thought of being indoors right now makes him want to crawl out of his skin.

He can probably walk around for a bit, he reasons with himself. It’s early enough in the semester that he doesn’t have that much homework to do, and he’s already ahead of all his deadlines—he can allow himself a break for one afternoon.

He considers calling Kai, but he’s probably holed up in their room playing videogames, and trying to get a hold of him while he’s gaming is always a lost cause. Taehyun thinks that Beomgyu also mentioned something about a group project, so that’s out of the question, too.

He suddenly realizes that, all the while, his feet have unconsciously been leading him to Jahayon Pond. Well, it makes sense that, with his light spirits, his subconscious would want to go to one of the prettiest spots on campus. Also, the caramel Frappuccinos of the café in front of the pond are delicious, if ridiculously expensive. Just for today, though, since he’s already having a lazy afternoon, Taehyun decides to treat himself.

He has to wait in line for a while at the café. Apparently, he isn’t the only one who’s had the idea to grab something to go and enjoy outside. The girl in front of him has streaks of dyed purple hair behind her ears and dangly owl earrings that Kai would love. He sends him a text about it but, as expected, he gets no reply. Once he’s got his Frappuccino (extra caramel and extra sugar, thank you very much), Taehyun heads down to the pond.

If he thought there were a lot of people inside the café, it’s nothing compared to the horde of students he finds swarming outside.

Jahayon Pond is a small body of water in front of the Humanities’ buildings, surrounded by beautiful trees and plants of all kinds. The water looks dark and peaceful, reflecting flashes of golden light and green leaves. A willow tree weeps over the surface on one side while camelia trees throw their flowers in the water like spurned lovers. There is a wooden deck where you can always find groups of students lying in various states of relaxation.

Taehyun sees that some of the people gathered there now have taken off their shoes to hang their bare feet over the banister, even if they’re too high up for their toes to touch the water. This is a popular spot all year round, but especially so in the warmer months, and it shows.

It's a little too loud and crowded for Taehyun’s taste, and without Kai and Beomgyu there with him, he would feel too uncomfortable standing alone among groups of friends. So instead of going down to the deck, he decides to take the narrow steps that climb down to one side of the pond.

It becomes immediately apparent that they aren’t used very often—they’re mostly covered in weeds and moss, probably due to the humidity of the pond. He sits down on the last step, which seems to be the less mossy one, careful not to spill his coffee all over himself. He sighs as he stretches his legs in front of him—his white tennis shoes scrap the ground until they’re covered in bits of brown earth and leaves, like dark sugar on milk.

He sets his bag against the step behind him as a makeshift pillow. He takes a slow sip of his drink and hums happily.

This is actually a very nice spot, he thinks. He should tell the others about it. The long branches of the willow tree sway in front of him on the other side of the pond, casting a mesmerizing dance of light and shadow. A large oak tree shades him from the glare of the sun, and a soft breeze twirls around his ankles and ruffles his hair.

He closes his eyes and hangs his head back. He could really fall asleep like this…

“Ah, the fearsome thief strikes again, I see,” a voice calls behind him.

Taehyun nearly jumps out of his skin in alarm. He looks over his shoulder to see who dares interrupt his Zen moment, and sees no other than Choi Yeonjun standing a few steps above him. The afternoon sun paints his skin gold and his hair bronze, and he looks like he came straight out of a fashion magazine. He’s got a light brown coat folded over one arm and he's smiling down at Taehyun like they’ve been friends forever.

Taehyun can only blink.

“Mind if I sit?” Yeonjun asks, but he doesn’t wait for an answer. He plops down next to Taehyun on the last step. “Seeing as you just stole my secret spot —again, might I add—, I think it’s only right you get to share. Don’t you agree?” He smiles angelically at Taehyun.

Taehyun opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. He can’t say he’s used to the feeling. Or that he particularly likes it. But then again, he’s also not used to terribly handsome boys approaching him out of nowhere. It takes a couple seconds for his brain to come back online, and then he latches on to the first thing he can think of.

“It’s not a secret spot if it’s out in the open and pretty much everyone can have access to it.” Well, at least now he knows not even cute boys can stop him from talking back.

Yeonjun’s smile deepens in real amusement and he lounges further on the steps, leaning back on his elbows and stretching his legs before him.

“It’s a secret spot if I’m the only one who uses it.” Yeonjun raises his eyebrows and circles his finger at Taehyun. “Except when tiny little thieves come to steal it. What, did you get a taste for it last time and now you just can’t help yourself?”

This up close, Taehyun can smell Yeonjun’s cologne—something citrusy that makes his nose tickle pleasantly. It’s distracting, so he tries to be subtle as he leans back a little. He can feel himself gearing up to make a point, and he needs his head clear for that—Taehyun loves making a point, especially if his opponent is quick and witty, which he thinks Yeonjun might be.

“First of all, I am not tiny.” He’s in the 1,70s, it’s not his fault he’s surrounded by giants. “And second of all, the library and Jahayon are public spaces meant for all campus students. You can’t claim they’re yours just because you feel like it.”

“I didn’t say all of it is mine, I just said that particular table and these stairs are mine.”

“Well, I still don’t see your name anywhere on them.”

“Would it make it better if I put up a sign that says, ‘Property of Choi Yeonjun: Fuck off’? Would that deter your thieving ways?”

Taehyun pretends to think about it. “Probably not. I’d just track you down and demand you remove it.” He’s enjoying himself immensely.

“Why?”, Yeonjun laughs and his eyes scrunch up, like he’s enjoying this just as much as Taehyun is.

“Because you still have no authority to do that. It’s a free country.”

“So you’d just ignore my wishes like that? Wow. Mean.” Yeonjun pouts. “I guess I’ll just have to get used to finding cute boys in my hiding spots. What a sad, tragic life.”

If Taehyun brain hadn’t been struck by a sudden realisation, it probably would have zeroed in on that “cute” comment. As it were, however, he’s too busy becoming aware of the situation and berating himself for it.

He’s sitting by a beautiful pond next to a beautiful boy. And not just any beautiful boy—Choi Yeonjun, notorious all over campus for his mysterious aura and ‘bad boy’ reputation (as much as Taehyun cringes to think of it like that). And yet, sitting there in the sun, Yeonjun doesn’t look anything like a bad boy. He doesn’t even act mysterious at all. Except for the rough first few minutes of their acquaintance, Yeonjun has been nothing but nice and friendly to Taehyun, talking openly and joking freely.

And there lies the problem. What if Yeonjun wasn’t completely joking, what if Taehyun has just been imposing on this poor boy the whole time, who probably just wanted to chill in peace and didn’t know how to politely tell Taehyun to fuck off. Because, again, he’s friendly and nice, and doesn’t want to be rude. And, meanwhile, Taehyun has just been sitting here on his ass making a general nuisance of himself.

God, he’s such an idiot.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t think. You probably just wanted to be alone, and I’ve just been chatting your ear off.” He scrambles up to stand, grabbing his drink and his bag. God, why does he never think about what other people want. Is he really that selfish? “I really didn’t mean to bother you, I’m so sorry.”

He turns to go, trying to make his escape as swift and painless as possible, but a hand closes around his wrist, stopping him.

“Hey, no- You- ,“Yeonjun says, rubbing the back of his neck. The tips of his ears are a little red and, If Taehyun didn’t know any better, he’d say he looks a little embarrassed. “I didn’t mean you should go, I was just teasing. Besides, you were here first—if anything, it’s me who’s been bothering you. You should stay. I mean. If you want. You could stay.” Yeonjun’s mouth purses slightly in a grimace.

Taehyun blinks a few times.

“Okay, yeah.” He says after a pause. “If you’re sure?” He tries to meet Yeonjun’s eyes to confirm he’s okay with it, but Yeonjun just gives a quick nod without looking at him.

Yeonjun seems to relax once Taehyun is back to sitting next to him on the mossy steps, though he continues to stare fixedly at the students taking photos in the deck.

“So,” Yeonjun says, clearly trying to push past the awkwardness. Taehyun is glad—his own conversation starters are always a disaster. “What do you do? For your major, I mean. I don’t think you told me last time.”

“I’m in Mathematics,” he says.

He expects the usual comment of ‘really? I hated maths in school’, but Yeonjun just hums and says, “Huh. That makes sense.”

Taehyun frowns. It’s not the answer he was expecting, but he’s also not sure how he should take that. Is it because Taehyun looks like a nerd and maths just cements his image further?

“How so?” he asks.

Yeonjun finally turns to look at him. The wind ruffles his hair and strands of black hair land into his eyes, the pink ends now almost faded to a muted peach. The way it frames his face makes him look softer, somehow, smoothing out his sharp angles. He really is quite handsome, Taehyun thinks.

“You mentioned something about graphs last time, when you were doing your homework,” Yeonjun says, and Taehyun is surprised he remembers. “I figured you were studying something maths or science related.”

“Oh.” That’s also not the answer Taehyun was expecting. But before he can say anything else, Yeonjun continues

“I think it’s really cool, by the way. I remember how you said I must like my major a lot, but I think you might love yours more.”

“What do you mean?” Taehyun asks, intrigued.

“Well, usually people use maths as a means to an end, like for engineering or physics.” Yeonjun waves his hand in the air as he speaks. “If you’re studying pure mathematics, that means you must love them on their own. That’s even cooler,” he shrugs. “Or at least, that’s what I think,”.

Taehyun has never really thought of it like that. Other people studied what they loved. Taehyun studies maths because it’s who he is.

But perhaps that is a form of love, too.

“I can’t imagine doing anything else,” he says, because that’s the one truth he’s still sure of. “Even if I can’t seem to decide what to do with it.”

“Ah, the universal question of the undergraduate student.” Yeonjun smiles ruefully as he squints up at the sun. “What year are you in?”

Taehyun takes a sip of his coffee before he answers—It’s almost cold.

“I’m in my second year,” he says with a grimace.

And, sure enough, Yeonjun’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head. “You’re a sophomore??” he sounds almost scandalised. He’s blinking very quickly and his mouth is pursed in a surprised duck-pout—if Taehyun wasn’t cringing at himself, he’d think it was cute.

 But he is cringing, because suddenly he feels awfully young next to Yeonjun, so he simply nods.

“Wow,” Yeonjun continues, “I really wasn’t expecting that. I thought you were in your third year at the very least. Now I feel bad.”

“Why?” Taehyun frowns. He gets that Yeonjun’s got at least two or three years on him, but Taehyun is 20 years old—he’s not a kid. Does Yeonjun think associating with a 20-year-old is lame? Is that why he feels bad?

But Yeonjun just waves him off without answering. “Anyways, if you are a sophomore, then you don’t need to worry about that yet. You’ll have plenty of time for that once you’re a senior like me.”

“Do you? Know what you’re going to do after you graduate, I mean,” Taehyun asks, curious.

“Ah, do you not know it’s bad manners to ask a senior that,” Yeonjun scolds him playfully, without any heat behind it. But then his expression becomes thoughtful, determined. “I want to have my own brand one day. I want my designs to fit how people feel, no matter the body type, age or gender.” The corner of his mouth ticks up, like he’s laughing at himself. “I’ll probably have to start from the very bottom, but I don’t mind.”

Yeonjun is still staring at the water, but now he’s got a faraway look in his eyes, like he’s seeing years and struggles into the future. Taehyun can’t stop looking at his side profile, golden in the sun like the relief of a coin.

“I’m sure you’ll get there one day, hyung,” Taehyun says, and he means it.

“That’s kind of you, Taehyun-ah,” Yeonjun says around a soft laugh. But Taehyun wasn’t saying it to be kind. Even if he has never seen Yeonjun’s work, his passion and confidence speak for themselves. He feels himself wanting to believe Yeonjun no matter what he says, despite the fact that he barely knows him. He doesn’t know how to put any of that into words, or if he would even want to in the first place, so he just says,

“I wasn’t trying to be kind,” because it’s important that Yeonjun knows that Taehyun doesn’t say kindnesses if they are not truths.

Yeonjun turns his head, and as his gaze focuses on Taehyun the faraway look disappears bit by bit from his eyes. Instead, they take hold of Taehyun’s and refuse to let go, scrutinizing his face with an intensity that makes the neck of his shirt feel hot. It feels too charged a moment for a casual conversation between two practical strangers, but Taehyun can’t tear his eyes away. The only thought running through his head is, I was right that first time—his eyes really are very intense.

“Well, thank you anyway.” Yeonjun says finally, and the spell is broken. They both look away and Taehyun is left staring at his shoes, tiny cartoon question marks bouncing around in his brain.  

“You know, if-,” Yeonjun starts after a moment of silence, but a sudden yell interrupts him.

“Jun-ah! Yeonjun-ah! Hey!”

They both jump and look around frantically, trying to find the source of the voice. Yeonjun lets out a fond-sounding sigh when he does, and Taehyun turns to look as well.

There’s a boy waving maniacally from the corner of the deck closest to their stairs. He’s got light lavender hair that shines in the sun and half of his body hanging over the railing, clearly trying to catch Yeonjun’s attention.

There is another boy with black hair and an incredibly sharp jawline holding on to the other one by his sweater, in a clear attempt to stop him from falling into the water. Black hair boy seems to be berating him at the same time, not that it looks like lavender boy cares—he only leans more heavily over the railing once he sees that he’s got their attention, cupping a hand next to his mouth and calling out, “Yeonjun-ah! C’mon, what are you doing, man? Let’s go!”

Yeonjun raises a hand in acknowledgment, which seems to appease the boy. His friend finally manages to tug him down and Taehyun sees them face each other and start bickering, probably waiting for Yeonjun to join them.

“Sorry,” Yeonjun says. “That was Wooyoung, he can be a little loud sometimes. I promised I would go with him somewhere, so I should probably get going.”

“It’s okay,” Taehyun says, because it would be ridiculous to feel disappointed.

Yeonjun stands up, fluid and graceful even as he pats down his pants to get rid off mossy bits. Taehyun has to force his eyes up and away from his long legs.

“I’ll see you around, Tahyun-ah,” Yeonjun says. “And I mean it: if you see me on campus and don’t come say hi, I’ll be sad,” he pouts, his lips forming a near perfect equilateral triangle. A very nice equilateral triangle. Just. Objectively.

“Maybe I’ll steal something from you again, and then you’ll be sad I did come say hi.”

“Planning our next heist already, are we? Can’t a man feel safe around here anymore?

Taehyun shrugs. “I have to keep you on your toes. Can’t have you getting lazy with your ‘property’.”

“Thanks,” Yeonjun says. “Very considerate of you.”

“I try.”

Yeonjun is smiling down at him, all his angles smooth and golden in the light, and Taehyun really doesn’t see where all those people got ‘bad boy’ from. He can’t imagine there being anything ‘bad’ about this boy.

“Yeonjun-ah, c’mon,” shouts again the guy Taehyun supposes is Wooyoung. “Stop flirting and get your ass here!”

Taehyun blushes instantly but Yeonjun just rolls his eyes and shouts back, “I’m coming, you brat!” And then, to Taehyun, “I swear to god, Jung Wooyoung. Okay, I’m really going now. Remember to come say hi when you see me—or when you steal something from me next, whichever comes first.” He smiles cheekily and, like that first time, he gives Taehyun a two-finger salute, which somehow manages to look both goofy and cool.

“I will,” Taehyun says, but Yeonjun has already climbed up the stairs and disappeared behind camelia trees.

He sees him reappear next to his friends on the deck, who still seem to be bickering about something or other. When lavender boy sees Yeonjun, though, he puts him in a headlock and they spin around a few times while Yeonjun tries to break free, laughing. And, oh. He can’t be sure from this distance, but he thinks he sees lavender boy smack a kiss on Yeonjun’s cheek. But, well, of course. Yeonjun is insanely attractive, of course he’d have someone like that. Of course. It was an error in logic on Taehyun’s part not to have thought of it until this point.

He doesn’t realise he’s staring fixedly at them until the boy Taehyun assumes is Wooyoung raises his head from their play-wrestling and looks straight at Taehyun. He does his best not to flinch, and when the boy waves at him enthusiastically he gives an awkward wave back. Unfortunately, supposed-Wooyoung’s action means that Yeonjun finally manages to pull away and turns back to look too. Taehyun doesn’t want Yeonjun to think that he was just staring at him like a creep, but Yeonjun just smiles widely and takes up lavender boy’s exaggerated waving. Thankfully, black hair boy seems to say something then, because the other two turn to him and after a few words they all start walking away, saving Taehyun from further embarrassment.

He watches them walk away, wind in his hair, thinking about the improbability of arbitrariness, about equilateral smiles and hair like faded peach fuzz, about the test for next week and beating Chaeryong, about videogames and Kai, and Beomgyu and the undefined date for the party he wants them to go to. About everything and nothing, and the smell of spring.

Chapter Text

The next few days after his conversation with Yeonjun are largely uneventful—Taehyun goes to class in the mornings and hangs out with Kai and Beomgyu in the afternoons. Rinse and repeat. They’ve developed a routine where, unless one of them has anything else to do, they all gather in Taehyun and Kai’s room and play games, eat snacks or do dumb shit together.

On the days that one of them actually has something to do—Kai’s theatre club, Taehyun’s tutoring sessions or Beomgyu’s extra studio hours—they meet somewhere afterwards and chill together for a while. If the weather is warm enough, they go down to the river, where Taehyun and Beomgyu have an ongoing stone-skipping competition, and when it’s too cold to be by the water they huddle together inside some café and pretend to do homework while they laze around.

One time last year Beomgyu brought a joint for them to try, claiming he knew the perfect spot to not be caught. He made them go all the way up to the rooftop of the Philosophy building (a little cliché, but hey, who is Taehyun to judge), claiming everyone always came here when you didn’t want anyone to see you, since it was next to the baseball field and a little further removed from the other Humanities buildings.  

Taehyun had been a little hesitant at first, but he’d never tried it before and he was curious. Beomgyu, having already smoked a few times, was pretty much unaffected by it, but Taehyun, to the others’ delight, proved to be hilarious when high. Everything was suddenly extremely funny to him and left him in uneven fits of breathless laughter, and at one point he’d gone on a long-winded rant about the superior Pokémon game (Black and White, obviously). Which wasn’t that different from normal Taehyun, except he’d kept being distracted by the shape of passing clouds and Beomgyu’s shiny jacket.  

Beomgyu and Kai had laughed at him for weeks, even though Kai himself had turned into a fountain of giggles on his first drag—more than usual, anyways. There is a bit of a disconnect between Taehyun’s memories of that afternoon, like faulty synapses, but he remembers feeling relaxed and having a good time overall. What he didn’t like was the lack of control he felt over his body and his own thoughts, everything too slow or too hazy, which is why, despite having a good time, he’s in no rush to do it again.

But that is just one example of the harmless dumbassery they can get up to. They haven’t done anything too crazy lately, though—no smuggled snakes or weed in sight—because their afternoons have been a little busy these past few weeks. Kai’s club wants to put on a play before the start of summer break, Beomgyu has more projects to complete this year as a junior, and Taehyun tutors 5 students in total this semester, so they have to schedule their hangouts to the minute. Beomgyu rents one of the studios with two other students some afternoons to work on his art, and Taehyun and Kai have taken to meeting him outside around 6:30 p.m., once they’re all done with their stuff.  

And that is how Taehyun ends up seeing Yeonjun more often than he thought he would. He’s never hung out much around the Fine Arts complex before, except to pick up Hyunjin from class once or twice last semester, who was in Oriental Painting. It makes sense, then, that Taehyun hadn’t crossed paths with Yeonjun much until this point.

Now, however, it’s like he is everywhere.

It feels like Taehyun has entered a new dimension—one that exists within the confines of the Art buildings and where Yeonjun is the main character. He’s always everywhere Taehyun looks, like he’s just waiting for Taehyun to find him. He sits on benches, sprawls on entrance stairs, leans against walls, and is basically a general safety hazard for Taehyun’s nerves.

What’s even worse, though, is that he’d apparently been completely serious when he told Taehyun to come say hi if they ever crossed paths.

The first time he sees Yeonjun after their conversation by the pond, Taehyun is running late to his friends’ usual meeting place, slightly sweaty and annoyed at not being in time.

It’s actually Yeonjun who notices him first—Taehyun is hurrying across the Fine Arts complex when he hears, “Taehyun-ah, hey! Taehyun, wait up!”

It effectively stops him in his tracks, and he looks around to see who it is before he notices Yeonjun standing up from a bench full of other people. In the time it takes Yeonjun to reach him, Taehyun makes a few adjustments in his mind, from Hurry-the-fuck-up Mode to Hey-wait-that’s-Yeonjun-whoa Mode.

“Hyung, hi. It’s nice to see you,” he finally says.

“Are you sure?” Yeonjun tilts his head to the side playfully. He’s got his hair pushed off his forehead today and he’s wearing an oversized denim jacket with flowers embroidered over the breast pocket. He looks a bit like an idol, or a drama lead. “It seemed to me like you were planning on ignoring me, just like you said you wouldn’t. Are all dongsaengs this disrespectful to their hyungs, or is it just you?”

Taehyun startles. “That is not fair. I wasn’t looking where I was going, I just didn’t see you there.”

“Mmm, it looks like your list of aggrievances grows by the minute.” He starts counting them off on his fingers, eyes scrunched up in mirthful half-moons. “First you steal my things, then you make false promises, and now you give me excuses. I’d say that’s the behaviour of a vile delinquent. Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

Taehyun crosses his arms, but he can’t hide the fact that he finds it amusing.

“I say that you are being dramatic.”

“And I say that you are avoiding responsibility for your actions. How do you plan to make it up to me?”

“My delinquent acts,” the look he gives Yeonjun hopes to express how utterly unimpressed he is by all this. Yeonjun just stares back at him with a cheeky grin, “are more than justified enough, and your accusations wouldn’t hold for a minute in court. I don’t owe you any type of compensation.”

“Ah, but I demand one anyways.”

“What would you even want?”

“So you do admit I deserve one?” Yeonjun raises an annoyingly attractive eyebrow.

“I did no such thing. I’m just curious by nature. I like to know the specific kind of nonsense I am about to be subjected to.”

Yeonjun nods approvingly, the corner of his mouth still ticked up. “A wise stance.”

“Yes,” Taehyun says, and when Yeonjun doesn’t offer anything else, “Well?”

“Well what?” Yeonjun questions innocently.

Taehyun narrows his eyes in suspicion. He doesn’t trust that look. It’s too similar to Beomgyu’s Up-to-Something face.

“What sort of compensation would you want?” he repeats.

“Oh, I don’t know yet. I’ll tell you when I think of something.”

Taehyun frowns. “You can’t do that.”

“Yes, I can. I’m the victim here, remember?” He winks, flirty and easy like breathing. Taehyun feels his ears blush without his consent. He consoles himself by thinking that even if he cannot control his body’s reaction to Yeonjun’s natural charisma, he can certainly choose how to act on it.

And so, his face remains impassive, big eyes barely blinking as he says, “Well, let me know when you decide what you want. Though I make no promises. At all.”

“Oh, I will. But you should go; it looked like you were in a hurry, I don’t want to keep you.” Taehyun is about to demand why he didn’t believe him when he said he was going too fast and didn’t see him, then, but Yeonjun smiles like he is waiting for it, so he just bites his lip and doesn’t give him the satisfaction. He does send an accusatory look his way, though. Yeonjun just laughs as he backs away.

Immersed in his talk with Yeonjun as he was, he hadn’t paid much attention to the group of people that Yeonjun had been sitting with. Now, he notices that while most of them are talking among themselves and not paying the two of them any mind, a black-haired boy is looking at them curiously. Taehyun realizes with a jolt that it’s the same boy that was on the deck with lavender boy the other day. He doesn’t see the latter anywhere—or rather, hear him—, but he flushes a bit under black-haired boy’s stare, feeling like he’s been caught at something and not knowing at what, exactly.

Yeonjun breaks him out of his reverie when he cheerfully calls out,

“Bye, Taehyun-ah! And remember, if you forget to say hi again, I’ll add it to your list of compensations.”

Taehyun can’t help but roll his eyes, a smile playing at the corners of his lips.

“Bye, hyung,” he says, and then he runs off to meet his friends.

After that, he sees Yeonjun a couple times over the course of the next few days, usually somewhere in the vicinity of the Fine Arts buildings and once, remarkably, close to the gym. Every time he sees him, Taehyun feels a jolt go through him, like an electric wire being connected, but he makes a point to always greet him first from now on, citing each time that it should redeem him from having to make up for his supposed past ‘aggrievances’. Yeonjun looks delighted each time, but still in no way willing to let go of Taehyun’s sentence.

For some reason, Taehyun has been alone all those times he’s seen Yeonjun—Kai and Beomgyu off busy somewhere else or on their way to meet Taehyun.  That’s why it takes him completely by surprise when Kai gasps out of nowhere and clutches his arm tightly.

“Ow! What-“ he starts to ask, but promptly closes his mouth when he sees what Kai is looking at.

Yeonjun is walking over to them, looking carefree and seemingly unaware of the stares he attracts from the students around him. Today he fits more the part of the campus bad boy that people seem to want to believe he is; he’s wearing a sleeveless black leather jacket on top of a sleeveless grey hoodie, ripped black jeans and dangly chain earrings that brush against his sharp jaw.

Taehyun waves at him and Yeonjun waves back as he comes closer. Kai is still as a statue beside him.

“Is that Choi Yeonjun??” Kai whisper-shouts. Taehyun has always wondered if he learned the art of the theatrical whisper in drama school or if that’s just an innate Kai talent.

“Don’t be weird,” Taehyun whispers back in a much subtler way, just in time for Yeonjun to stop in front of them.

“Hey!” Yeonjun says to Taehyun, and then he bows politely to Kai and says, “Hi, I’m Choi Yeonjun, nice to meet you.”

“Hi, what’s up,” Taehyun says. “This is Kai, my roommate. I think I told you about him before.” Kai is just staring back at Yeonjun with wide eyes, a mix of terror and fascination on his face. Taehyun has to give him a nudge to get him to react and bow back.

“Hi!” he finally says as he bows so quickly he almost loses balance. “I’m Huening Kai, Taehyun’s roommate. Who he told you about. Haha, because you talk. About me, apparently. Haha!”

Taehyun has to resist the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. Perhaps it was a little unreasonable to ask him to not be weird.

But Yeonjun just smiles his equilateral smile, like that was a perfectly normal thing to say.

“Yeah, he said you are studying Theatre, right? I actually did some of the costumes for the annual year-end play two years ago, as a favour to a friend. It was a lot more work than I thought it would be,” he gives a self-deprecating laugh that just looks charming on him. “But I learned a lot, so I’d say it was worth it.”

Kai looks a little awestruck already. Taehyun and Kai are similar in that they both have a select inner circle of only a few trusted people, but the main difference between them is that, despite being a huge introvert, Kai genuinely likes people and always tries to see the best in them. So Taehyun is not surprised he likes Yeonjun after only exchanging a few words, given that Yeonjun is incredibly charming and has managed to go straight to Kai’s favourite topic (besides Soobin, at least).

“Really? That’s so cool!” Kai claps his hands together excitedly. “We are putting on a play before summer break starts. You should definitely come if you want! We already have the idea for most of the costumes, and they’re not really very complicated, but there’s this head-piece that’s really kicking our asses; you’re welcome to come take a look any time!”

“Kai, I’m sure he has better things to do than-“ Taehyun starts to say, but Yeonjun interrupts him by saying,

“No, it’s okay, I’d love to. I used to go to a lot of plays with my mom when I was little, and I’ve always liked it.” Yeonjun turns to Taehyun. “Will you be going, too?”

“To see the play? Yeah, of course.”

“Taehyunie comes to all my stages.” Kai says proudly, elbowing him conspiratorially. “He’s my most loyal supporter.”

“I just don’t want you crying to me later about not going.” Taehyun says, as if he hasn’t waited for Kai at the end of all of his plays with snacks, or cried when his character was killed on stage that one time.

“Sure, whatever you say, Taehyunie,” Kai says, like he can read through him. Which he probably can, actually. Being seen by the people he loves is absolutely humiliating. Taehyun is not a fan.

“You two are cute,” Yeonjun says, and when Taehyun looks at him he sees that he is watching them with an amused expression.

“Kai is cute. I have never been cute a day in my life.”

“Ha!” Kai lets out a laugh.

“Oh, is that how it is?” Yeonjun tilts his head to the side, a glint in his eyes.

“Yes.”

“What about when you were a baby?” Kai wonders. “Or did you come out of the womb all serious and with perfect posture?”

“Yes.” Taehyun repeats, expression blank and “all serious”.

“You’re telling me you came out looking just like this?” Yeonjun asks.

“Exactly,” Taehyun confirms. Yeonjun puts his hands on his hips and leans closer as if to examine him better. Taehyun has to gather all of his strength not to pull away and admit defeat.

“Mmm, then I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree,” he says, face so close that Taehyun can see the eyeliner lining his delicate lids. “That just means you’ve been cute since the beginning.”

He leans back after that, looking a little satisfied with himself. Once Yeonjun’s face is out of his field of vision, Taehyun can see that Kai’s mouth is hanging open next to him.

Not that Taehyun is any better. He feels rooted to the spot, mind one big mess of keep it cool keep it cool keepitcool. He can feel his body temperature rising and he’s probably blushing, but at least his jaw is still attached to his face.

Thankfully, Yeonjun saves either of them from having to come up with anything to say to that when he says, “Anyways, what are you guys doing here? I feel like I always see you around Arts,” he says to Taehyun.

“We usually meet Beomgyu hyung outside his studio.” He’s proud of himself when he manages to sound mostly normal, even when his tongue still feels a little numb.

“Oh, say hi to him for me. I feel like it’s been ages since we hung out. I’ll have to text him.” Yeonjun says.

“Sure thing, hyung.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. Have fun, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He winks mischievously and gives them his signature two-finger salute before walking away.

“Dude,” Kai says, with feeling, once he is out of earshot. Taehyun starts walking again like he can’t hear him. Unfortunately for him, it only takes Kai two long strides to catch up to him. Taehyun hurries his pace a bit just to be petty, but Kai doesn’t even seem to notice, the brat. “Dude,” Kai repeats, “he looks so cool. Did you see his earrings? Do you think I could pull them off?” He slows down to check himself out on a glass panel on one of the buildings, turning his head this way and that, like he’s already imagining himself with a pair of silver chain earrings. Taehyun has to grab his arm to drag him away.

“Beomgyu hyung is probably already waiting for us,” he says.

“I can’t believe you weren’t making it up. You actually are friends with Choi Yeonjun!” Kai continues, completely unperturbed by being forcefully dragged.

“Do you usually assume I’m lying when I tell you things?” Taehyun huffs.

“Mm, you’re right. You aren’t nearly imaginative enough to make it up,” Kai says, consideringly. Taehyun glares at him; it’s not like he can deny it, he does have the imagination of a lifeless lump of wool. But still. Et tu, Brute, and all that.

“Besides, I don’t know if we can be called friends friends. We don’t know each other that well, we’ve just run into each other a few times,” Taehyun says.

“He seemed to like you just fine back there,” Kai points out, grinning. Before Taehyun can splutter anything in response, he says, “and he said he did the costumes for the end-of-the-year play two years ago! How cool is that? Mmm, let’s see, that was the year before we started uni. Oh, I think they did Oedipus Rex. No, wait, maybe it was…” He hums and taps his chin as he thinks, like a cartoon character.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe Kai didn’t really come out of an animation, both his looks and his personality putting him at odds with the world around him. A lot of people might find him weird for it, because he is soft and bright and full of almost-childish joy where everyone else is jaded and a little grey, edges dulled to the mundane. But it’s always been Taehyun’s favourite thing about him, and despite knowing that Kai is not actually a child and can stand up for himself, it has always inspired a fierce protectiveness in him.

“Aha!” Kai says, triumphantly, pulling him out of his musings. And then, “oh, no,” with great despair.

“What?” Taehyun asks, a little worried about the mix of wonder and distress on his face. He grabs his elbow to steer them both clear of two students chasing each other around.

“The year before us, they did an adaptation of Hamlet set in Goryeo, from Ophelia’s perspective. And I’ve seen a few pictures and videos; the costumes were amazing,” he laments.

“So what?” Taehyun asks, still not getting Kai’s reaction. This only confirms what he’d already suspected, that Yeonjun is really talented and good at what he does.

“You don’t understand, the costumes were literally perfect. He mixed hanbok from the Joseon dynasty with European elements of Hamlet’s time, and- here, let me show you!”

He pulls out his phone and starts typing and scrolling to find what he wants. After a few moments he lets out a noise of triumph and shows the screen to Taehyun, who bends down to look at it closely.

Kai has the theatre department Instagram account pulled up, clicking on a post from three years ago. In it, two people are facing each other on a stage. They’re both wearing full hanbok, the man in dark shades of stormy blue and stark white, a juxtaposition in graceful lines, and the woman in lavender and earthy-brown, somehow giving the impression of faded bruises. Taehyun’s experience with hanbok is extremely limited (only the brief acquaintance of Chuseok, where his grandmother pinches his cheeks and tells him how handsome he looks), but even he can tell how much work went into making the costumes look real and believable.

They look like they walked straight out from a drama, or even from actual Goryeo. More than that, they tell a story that even Taehyun’s inexperienced eyes can tell—of tumultuous feelings and deep unseen wounds. And all that with just a few pieces of fabric in well-chosen shapes and colours.

Needless to say, Taehyun is very impressed.

“Wow,” he says. He knew Yeonjun was probably talented from the way he talked about his major back in the library and the pond—passionate and determined—but actually seeing it is something else entirely.

“I know, right?” Kai says excitedly.  “He’s so good. If he actually looks some things over for our play, I’ll love you forever.”

“Me? That’s his decision to make, don’t drag me into it. And don’t pester him too much about it—I’m sure a senior like him has much more important things to do.”

“Riiight, because he would be even remotely interested in the play of a bunch of sophomores if I weren’t your friend. Which, by the way, we’re so gonna talk about how he called you cute back there.”

“Nope. We are not, because that’s not what happened,” he says, walking faster and focusing determinedly on an indefinite point ahead of him.

“You’re an idiot. But fine, we’ll table it for now,” Kai say, catching up with him in mere seconds, which only serves to annoy Taehyun. “But only because I still can’t believe you are friends with Choi Yeonjun. Of all the uncool people to manage that, I really didn’t think it would be you. But, hey, I’m still very proud!”

He says it with an encouraging grin, and the worst part is that Taehyun knows that he’s at least partly serious. Except the part where he thinks Taehyun is uncool—he knows he’s being fully serious about that, as both him and Beomgyu never fail to remind him.

He sighs. “Thanks, I guess. Can we stop talking about it now and go find hyung already?”

In the end, they don’t manage to meet Beomgyu, who texts Kai to tell them that he’s too busy with his project to meet up today. So they take the bus back to the dorms, where instead of going up to their room they mess around on the football field behind their building, both of them having too much energy to go inside. They don’t talk more about Yeonjun, but even as they kick around a lump of rubber that once was a ball, Taehyun can’t quite get rid of the image of Yeonjun’s glinting earrings and his even brighter smile.

The rest of the week trudges along without anything remarkable to offer, and by the time Taehyun realises it, it’s already Thursday night and Beomgyu is throwing himself on top of him, crushing all his vital organs.

“Ow,” he complains, trying to shake him off from where he’s fallen across his stomach. “You’re heavy, you know?”

“What are you wearing tomorrow night?” Beomgyu asks, ignoring him from the bottom of his heart.

They’re all lying around in Taehyun and Kai’s room in varying states of laziness—Kai has a controller in his hand, immersed in some game Taehyun doesn’t dare know too much about lest he become too invested. Taehyun is lying down on his bed after finishing his homework for the evening, and Beomgyu had been face-down on the floor scrolling through Instagram before he’d decided to use Taehyun as a human pillow.

He tries to recall Beomgyu’s question. “What am I wearing tomorrow? I don’t know. Why?”

Beomgyu twists his head from where it’s hanging over the edge of the bed to glare at him. “Because tomorrow is Friday. You can’t show up in your usual hoodies or button-ups.” At Taehyun’s blank expression, he narrows his eyes and props himself up on an elbow. Taehyun grunts—the annoyingly pointy elbow in question happens to be right on his kidney. “For the party. Juyeon’s party, happening this Friday, tomorrow. Which I told you about last week. Ring any bells?”

“Oh,” Taehyun says as realisation hits.

“Yeah, oh. You aren’t planning on ditching us last minute, right?”

“He probably completely forgot about it,” Kai says from somewhere on the floor.

“I didn’t forget. I was just…momentarily unaware of its existence,” Taehyun says. He definitely forgot.

“Sure,” Kai snorts. Taehyun wants to throw something at him, but one of his arms is currently trapped under a 1,79cm-tall sack of potatoes.

“You promised you would come,” Beomgyu continues. “You swore on your first-born child.”

“I don’t remember swearing anything on any first-born children.”

“Mmm, I don’t think you can have more than one first-born. No one is first twice,” Kai pipes up. Taehyun can only see the top of his head from where he’s slumped on the floor, but he can hear an explosion coming from his game.

“Thanks, Kai, that was super helpful,” Taehyun says.

“No problem!”

“Guys, can we focus?” Beomgyu interrupts their bickering before it can escalate to its usual levels. “Are you coming, yes or no?” he directs at Taehyun.

“This feels like peer pressure,” Taehyun states, because someone should say it. “But yeah, yeah, I’m coming. I said I would, didn’t I?” Taehyun may have (momentarily!) forgotten that the party was happening, but he is not someone who goes back on his word and, besides, now that he has been reminded of it, he’s kinda looking forward to a night of dumb, light fun with his friends.

“Great!” Beomgyu says, suddenly much more cheerful. “Then you can tell me your opinion on this outfit.” He gets up, finally releasing Taehyun’s organs from their mortal torment, and crawls up the bed to lay his head on the pillow next to Taehyun’s.

“You always bitch about my outfit choices. Why would you want my opinion?” he complains, but Beomgyu is already shoving the phone in his face.

“Because you never sugar-coat things when they suck. Even if you could always be a little nicer about it, you brat.” The pointy elbow makes a reappearance on Taehyun’s ribs.

He squints at the picture Beomgyu is showing him. In it, Beomgyu is wearing a t-shirt of one of the rock bands Beomgyu likes, artfully ripped in places, probably by Beomgyu himself. It’s tucked into high waisted black jeans and a bulky belt. With his shabby long hair, he looks the part of the guitar player in some indie band. He looks hot. Taehyun tells him as much.

“Thanks,” Beomgyu says, patting his head like a puppy. Taehyun mimics biting his hand. “But do you think the shirt would go better with these pants?” He shows him another picture, this time with different pants. “Or should I ditch the shirt and wear this instead?”

After what feels like a thousand photos, all of which look like variations of the same thing to Taehyun, he’s had enough. He threatens to kick Beomgyu off his bed if he shows him one more outfit, but that just makes him change course. “You know, I could lend you some of these for tomorrow. God knows you need it.”

“Thank you,” Taehyun deadpans. “But no.”  He goes back to his own phone; he’s found this account about kittens testing out different kinds of pillows. There was one that just stared at the pillow with disdain before walking away regally.

“At least promise you won’t wear one of your gym hoodies.” Beomgyu stares at him, pleading. Taehyun just pushes his head away.

“You come into my room, steal my snacks,” he looks pointedly at the half-finished bag of chips Beomgyu had left open on the floor, “and almost crush me to death. I’m not promising you shit.”

“Fine, be like that.” Beomgyu huffs. “I hope you never get laid ever again.”

“Fine by me,” Taehyun says, not looking up from his phone.

But Beomgyu, being Beomgyu, is not done yet.

“I wish you a life of miserable spinsterhood. I hope your breath stinks and you get food stuck between your teeth on every date you go to.”

“Will do,” Taehyun says.

“I hope your ungrateful, shabby ass receives no carnal knowledge in the years to come. I wish no guy finds you cute ever again-“

He would have probably kept going, too, if Kai hadn’t interrupted him with, “I’m afraid that’s pointless, hyung. Apparently, guys think Taehyunie is pretty cute. Which he is!”

Taehyun is already blushing to his ears and plotting inventive ways to murder Kai when Beomgyu rounds on him like a wolf who has smelled the first drop of blood.

“Oh?” he asks, jabbing a finger at Taeyun’s side. “Are we talking about any guys in particular?” There’s a gleeful glint in his eyes Taehyun doesn’t like, his previous wishes for Taehyun’s eternal spinsterhood utterly forgotten.

“No,” Taehyun denies flatly, moving Beomgyu’s claw-like fingers away from him.

“There definitely is. Who is it? C’mon, tell me. I’m feeling very left out right now, I demand to know! Kai!”

Kai has no problem betraying Taehyun. “We ran into Choi Yeonjun the other day, and he seemed to find our Taehyunie very cute.”

Taehyun crosses his arms against his chest and burrows back against the pillows. It’s not that he doesn’t want to tell Beomgyu, it’s just that it’s really nothing and he knows Beomgyu will want to make a big deal out of it regardless.

“Yeonjun hyung?” Beomgyu rounds on Taehyun, eyebrows already rising up to his hairline.

“It wasn’t like that,” he says, because he can already see the gears in Beomgyu’s mind start to work themselves into a frenzy. “He just said that I must have been cute when I was a baby.”

“Uh, no. Are you dumb?” Kai says. “He very much did call you cute now.”

“Oho, looks like our little Taehyunie has got moves!” Beomgyu slaps him a few times on the chest, but unfortunately manages to avoid Taehyun’s retaliation punch. “Maybe there’s actually something to your library strategy.”

“What strategy?” he huffs.

Kai drops his controller and shuffles over to fling himself over Taehyun’s knees, which at least spares him from having his organs crushed again, but still makes him grunt all the same. His poor joints.

“Maybe we’ll make a player out of you, after all,” he says happily. Taehyun tries to raise his knee to shake him off, but he’s even heavier than Beomgyu.

“I don’t want to be a player.” Taehyun scrunches his nose in disgust.

“Oh, we know,” Beomgyu coos at him, trying to pinch his cheek. “You are too sweet for that. Ow!” Taehyun has managed to catch his little finger with his mouth and he bites down lightly on his knuckle in warning. Beomgyu shrieks, outraged, like the drama queen he is.

“Serves you right,” he mutters, sulky. Just because he’s currently trapped by a giant who’s holding his legs hostage doesn’t mean he’s completely defenceless.

“That’s right! Sweet Taehyunie! You can be as grumpy as you want, but Beomgyu and I both know you’re just a little softie at heart. That’s why we love you!” Kai says, which would have been a nice sentiment, if he hadn’t also been pulling on Taehyun’s leg hairs at the same time.

After a fair amount of wiggling. Taehyun finally manages to get one of his legs free enough to use his toes to tickle Kai’s side, one of his many weak spots. Kai may be big, but once you get him laughing, he loses control of all his limbs and you’ve basically won. Once he manages to break completely free, he throws himself on top of the giggling boy and they both wrestle for a bit, rolling around with his laughter and Kai’s screeches as background noise.

Taehyun decides that he’s had enough victory wrangling after a while and sits back on his heels. He looks over at Beomgyu to continue their conversation but stops when he sees the look on his face. He’s frowning a little, and the left corner of his mouth is pressed down in the way it goes when he’s worried or displeased about something.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. Beomgyu is more than used to Kai’s and his play-fighting, it can’t be about that.

“Nothing,” Beomgyu says, shaking his long hair back. “It’s just- You are very sweet, Taehyun-ah, under all those muscles and distant math-nerd aura.”

Oh oh. That’s a Serious-Beomgyu tone. He has to keep himself from fidgeting uncomfortably. Even Kai has propped himself up on his elbow from where he’d been sprawled after their mini scuffle, curious.

“So?” He doesn’t think he’s as sweet as Beomgyu is painting him out to be. Taehyun’s past partners, at least, would probably disagree. As well as the few unfortunate classmates who have tried to slack off on projects with him. But he knows Beomgyu, and probably Kai as well, will just argue with him if he says that, so he doesn’t.

“Hyung’s a pretty good guy. Yeonjun hyung, I mean,” Beomgyu says. “He’s always respectful to his partners, despite what the rumours say. He always treats them well, even the flings or the hook-ups, from what I know, but-“

“Hyung, what-“ Taehyun says, waving his hands in front of him as if he can fend off Beomgyu’s next words that way.

“-but he’s a natural flirt. He’s always flirting at people and calling them ‘darling’ or things like that, but he’s rarely serious about it. And I’m sure he finds you very cute! But I just don’t want you to get ideas and then be hurt when he doesn’t follow through with-“

“Hyung, whoah whoah whoah, stop!” Taehyun interrupts his ramble. “That’s not how it is at all. I don’t have a crush on Yeonjun hyung or anything like that, and I know he’s not serious,” he says, and ignores the odd feeling in his stomach when he says that. “We barely know each other, we’re just friendly.” When that doesn’t get rid off Beomgyu’s frown, he says, “Seriously, Kai and I were just fooling around; I’m not actually interested in him. Right?” He nudges Kai to get him to cooperate, and looks down at him when it takes him a couple of seconds to reply.

“Right.”

“See?” Taehyun says, nodding. “It’s chill, hyung, relax.”

Thankfully, that finally seems to get to Beomgyu, and he raises his palms in surrender. “Okay, okay! I was just saying. I don’t want you to end up hurt again after your ex.”

Taehyun ignores the comment about Hyunjin, because there’s no need to dig into that when they’ve just avoided one conversation boulder.

“That’s nice, but don’t think it will make me forget that you just ate my snacks and didn’t even bother to tie them up so they don’t get mushy,” he says instead.

“I love you?” Beomgyu tries.

“Too late,” Taehyun says, and promptly tackles him to the bed for another wrestling session. Kai joins them with a happy laugh, and it quickly becomes apparent why Beomgyu always tries to avoid getting in the middle of Taehyun and Kai’s scuffles; where they’d usually be going at each other, they now unite forces to focus all their attacks on Beomgyu, who screams and kicks and only manages to get in a pillow hit from time to time.

They spend the rest of the evening like that, munching on snacks and getting needlessly competitive about games. Taehyun likes to think that between Beomgyu, who will rub it in your face to the ends of time when he wins and whine like a baby when he loses, and Kai, whose smug winner face speaks a thousand words and who descends into endless pits of despair when he loses, he is the more mature out of the three of them, but a couple of lost matches put that to the test.

They end up having to kick Beomgyu out so that they can get some sleep, but there’s still a left-over warmth settled nicely in his stomach when he finally gets into bed. It’s amazing how a few hours with his friends are enough to make everything all right in the world.

Chapter Text

The only class Taehyun has on Fridays is a mid-morning class, and he usually uses the extra time to get an early work-out at the student gym. Kai is still sleeping when he wakes up (his first class starts at noon and he spends every last minute sleeping until he absolutely has to get up). He gets ready quietly in order to not disturb him and grabs his backpack and sports bag before heading out.

There’s an 8:00 a.m. kickboxing class that’s typically pretty empty—everyone either sleeping, in class, or too hungover to come. He tends to belong in one of the first two categories most of the time, but on Fridays he likes to come in and let out some of the tension he has accumulated during the week.

He always feels more clear-eyed and energized afterwards—nothing like a fist coming straight at your face to wake you up, even when you know it’s not real fighting and it won’t actually land.

The teacher is a bull of a man called Lee Hoseok, who gives the sweetest smiles and is an absolute nightmare on the mat. He’s surprisingly fast and precise for all his muscle mass, and despite his intimidating appearance, he’s probably one of the nicest people Taehyun has ever met.

Which is not to say that he isn’t utterly ruthless as a teacher. His classes are always gruelling, only made worse by the fact that he keeps smiling and cheering them on like his godlike displays of skill and strength are nothing.

Taehyun always leaves his classes aching in places he didn’t even know he could ache, and with the bone-deep satisfaction of well-put effort. Today is no different—as he leaves the showers and gets dressed, he can feel a pinch on his left shoulder when he moves his arm too much. As his leading arm, he has a tendency to strain his left side too hard. He switches both his backpack and gym bag to his right shoulder and massages the left one with a slight grimace. That’s probably going to bother him all day. Great.

He checks his watch. 10:12. It’s later than he thought; he’ll have to drop his sports bag in his room after class.

Fortunately, when he gets there, he sees that the teacher hasn’t even arrived yet. Instead, he sees Chaeryong already sitting on the second row, next to the window. Damn it, she beat him again.

He and Chaeryong have an ongoing competition where they both try to be in class before the other comes. He isn’t sure when it started, but it quickly escalated from being the first to get to class to being the first to complete or submit assignments. One time he submitted a task 58 seconds before her and she didn’t speak to him for a week.

He sighs as he walks over and sits down next to her, dropping his things on the empty seat to his right.

“Look who has finally decided to grace us with his presence,” Chaeryong says, not even looking up from her computer. He knew she was going to enjoy this.

“Professor Kwon isn’t even here yet,” he complains.

“Your point being?” she says, clicking around on the screen.

He gives up trying to defend himself (she did beat him, damn it) and instead starts taking his things out of his bag. He suddenly feels a light tug on his scalp and looks up to see her grabbing a wet strand of his hair and rubbing it between her fingers while he’s vulnerably crouched down getting his computer. “Why is your hair wet? Were you running late?” she singsongs, delighted.

Beomgyu’s record as the most insufferable winner could be easily challenged by Chaeryong. He refuses to fall into her game.

“You see, when water touches a permeable material-“ he starts, as he straightens back up.

“Really, you don’t say,” she cuts him off, smile dangerously sweet.

“I took a shower. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” she mocks him, mimicking his voice in an exaggerated snotty tone.

He’s not going to respond. He’s not going to say anything. He’s a mature, independent-

“I don’t sound like that,” he says. Damn it.

“Sure you don’t.”

“I don’t.”

“I don’t,” she mimics him again in that ridiculous voice.

“And I was at the gym, I wasn’t running late,” he can’t help pointing out.

“Uh huh.”

“Will you stop-“ he says, but she interrupts him.

“Hush, the teacher is here. Show a little respect, will you?” And she turns back to her screen, flipping her hair and transforming into the perfect model student.

He seethes at her but doesn’t say anything, because Professor Kwon did just come in and he actually does have some respect. Unlike others, he thinks, but when he looks pointedly at Chaeryong, she’s ignoring his existence wholeheartedly.

Sometimes she reminds him so much of his older sister, especially when they were younger and used to bicker about the ownership of every toy. She used to pull the I’m the noona card all the time, and he didn’t know how, but he always ended up twisted around and having to do what she wanted. All of his interactions with Chaeryong feel like that; he starts with a very clear purpose in mind and suddenly he’s the one in the wrong and she was right all along.

The rest of the students have started filtering in in the meantime, without either of them noticing, so by the time Taehyun turns to the front, Professor Kwon is about to start the class.

He spends the rest of the class focused on taking notes, unable to think about anything beyond the next variable. He only has time to roll his left shoulder from time to time, which is only growing stiffer due to the uncomfortable posture as he writes.

At one point, Chaeryong knocks her ankle against his and hisses at him to “Sit straight, dumbass. If you’re stupid enough to get muscle cramps from bad posture, I’m not carrying your things for you.” Which might have had nice sentiments buried somewhere under all the insults, but Taehyun is too busy trying to figure out the problem on the board, which the professor is asking students at random about, so he can only grunt in vague acknowledgement.

When class is over, he packs his things and starts heading out, and if he goes a little slower to give Chaeryong time to catch up to him, that’s no one’s business but his own. Unfortunately, that means he also opens up the possibility of other people catching up to him, and he has to suppress a sigh when he hears a cheerful “hey!” to his right as he reaches the door.

It’s not that he hates his classmates, it’s just that most of them are annoying and mildly incompetent at best.

Taehyun knows he can be a bit of a bitch, but that’s just how it is. For him, you’re either in or you’re out, and he’s not interested in letting most people in.

“Hey,” he answers, resigned to his fate, but when he turns his head he sees that it’s Sunghoon. He’s probably one of the only people in his year Taehyun has listed as “decently competent” in his head; they did a project together last year, and he was alright, if a little shy at times and overexcited at others. They’ve talked a few times in class after their project, short conversations about the course materials or their busy schedules. He doesn’t know what Sunghoon could want right now. Maybe to ask to have a look at Taehyun’s notes?

Sunghoon beams as he falls into step beside him.

“Professor Kwon is tough, isn’t he?” Sunghoon says with a hesitant little laugh. “I thought I was gonna have a heart attack when he asked me to solve that problem.”

“He’s pretty strict,” Taehyun agrees, “but he’s a good teacher. We’ll just have to study harder.” He wonders if that’s why Sunghoon approached him. He didn’t think Sunghoon was behind in this class but, to be fair, he doesn’t pay much attention to his classmates’ scores beyond Chaeryong’s and his own, so who knows, maybe Sunghoon is finding the coursework too burdensome and wants to ask Taehyun for help.

“Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure.” Sunghoon nods, fast and energetic like a little bobblehead, and Taehyun waits for him to say more, but he just looks down at his shoes and doesn’t offer anything else.  

Taehyun sees Chaeryong finally coming towards them, and he tries to communicate with his eyes that she should come over here and save him, but she just raises an eyebrow at him and smirks a little as she looks between him and Sunghoon. If anything, it seems like she only slows down her pace even more. Taehyun glares at her.

“So!” Taehyun has to force himself not to jump at Sunghoon’s sudden outburst. “We should definitely study more for this class, yeah. Studying is very important, haha. I bet that’s why you always get such good grades, you’re so smart. But, um. You don’t spend all your time studying, right?”

Taehyun frowns, confused. Is Sunghoon trying to ask him if he has any free hours for tutoring?

“I also tutor a few freshmen on the afternoons,” he says, hesitantly. He guesses he could start a study group with Sunghoon, if Sunghoon really needs it, but he’s a little surprised. The few times they’ve talked, he’s always gotten the impression that Sunghoon prefers studying alone. He even thinks he remembers Sunghoon mentioning during their project together that he always carried noise-cancelling earplugs in the library, because other people’s noise bothered him.   

“Oh.” Sunghoon blinks rapidly a few times. “That’s cool! But I meant, like, in your free time, haha.”

The longer they talk, the more confused Taehyun is.

“Oh,” he doesn’t know how to answer. What does that have to do with anything? He racks his brain for an answer, but suddenly he can’t remember a single thing he’s done for fun in his life. “Uhh, I’m going to a party tonight.” He winces internally. Is that all he can think of? A party he hasn’t even gone to yet? Maybe Beomgyu is right and he really is a grandpa trapped in the body of a twenty year-old.

But Sunghoon’s face lights up like a Christmas tree. “Ah! The international students’ party, right?  Jay and Jake are going, since, you know, international.” Taehyun has no idea who these Jay and Jake are, and he isn’t sure if he’s supposed to. But, really, is everyone going to this party? “I was planning on going too, that’s cool. I mean, it’s cool that you’re going. And I’m going. And Jay and Jake, of course! Since it’s for them, and I’m going for them, but we’ll probably still see each other there, hahaha, don’t you think?”

Sunghoon laughs nervously, and he looks a little red, probably about talking so much when he’s normally a pretty quiet person. Taehyun doesn’t want him to feel embarrassed if what he’s trying is to be more outgoing (maybe that’s what’s happening here?), so he says, “Yeah, sure. See you there.”

Which gets him a much brighter smile from Sunghoon than he thinks his answer warrants. And he isn’t saying anything else, just beaming at Taehyun kind of expectantly, and Taehyun is so confused.

Luckily, Chaeryong chooses that moment to grace them with her presence.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she says, grabbing Taehyun by the arm, “but I need to borrow this nerd over here.”

“Ah, um, sure,” Sunghoon stammers, but Chaeryong is already leading them both away with a blatantly fake-cheerful “bye!”.

“God, you’re a disaster,” she tells him once they’re a bit farther away.

“I am not,” he says out of sheer reflex, trying to get away from Chaeryong’s perfectly manicured claws. “Wait, about what? What did I do now?”

“If you don’t know already, I don’t want to tell you.” She finally lets him go after that cryptic message, climbing down the entrance steps ahead of him and turning around again before he can ask anything else, “We have that test for Professor Han next week. Try to study hard, or crushing you won’t be half as fun.”

“You have a terrible personality, noona.”

“Thanks!” she says before flipping her hair and walking away without another word.

Taehyun sighs, but now his thoughts are focused on Professor Han’s test, and he doesn’t think about Sunghoon’s weird behaviour or Charyong’s cryptic comments again.

That night, Beomgyu meets them in their room to go to the party together. He arrives unusually early, when Taehyun and Kai are still getting ready, and Taehyun has the sneaking suspicion he only did it to try to veto their outfits.

He’s wearing a combination of the clothes he showed Taehyun last time—a dark t-shirt of some obscure rock band with a leather jacket on top, ripped black jeans and heavy-looking boots. He looks cool and mysterious, and nothing like the chews-with-his-mouth-open woodland creature that Taehyun knows he actually is.

“Do you have snacks?” is the first thing he asks as he walks into the room, and just like that the illusion is broken.

“I think there are some sweet potato crackers left on Kai’s side,” Taehyun says, because they’re not his crackers.

“Hey!” Kai complains from somewhere inside the bathroom, but he doesn’t come out, so Beomgyu takes it as explicit permission to raid his snack stash.

“Juyeon and his friends set it all up earlier, but the party starts for real at 10,” Beomgyu starts, chewing while he talks (see? Taehyun wants to point out to the universe). “They’re doing some sort of welcoming ceremony for the international students, with drinking games and stuff, but I thought we could get there a little later when everyone’s already gotten started and loosened up a bit. What do you think?”

“Sure, sounds good,” Taehyun says, and Kai gives an affirmative muffled hmm from the bathroom. He’s probably brushing his teeth, if the exaggerated gurgling sounds are anything to go by. If Taehyun didn’t know any better, he’d think he was choking or drowning in the shower. Fortunately, he’s used to it by now; Kai’s getting-ready routine in the mornings is a whole situation.

“Okay, it’s already 9:52,” Beomgyu says, checking his phone. “I think it’ll be okay if we drop by at around 10:30.” He pops another cracker into his mouth, careful not to get any crumbs on his clothes.

There’s an unintelligible glrurrjrjjrrrurglurr coming from the bathroom, and Taehyun sighs before he says, “We didn’t get that, Kai. Could you repeat it?”

The walls of the dorms are so thin that they can hear him spit into the sink before he says, “I said that’s great! Soobin told me he’s coming a little later as well—he can meet us there!”

“You talked to Soobin?” Taehyun asks.

“Yup! I ran into him after class and we talked for a bit.” Kai says, sounding a little dreamy. “I still didn’t get his number, which sucks, but he did mention he was coming tonight with a couple of friends.”

“That’s settled, then,” Beomgyu says, and then, out of nowhere, “Do you think I should start speaking like an anime villain?”

“You’re already an anime villain,” Taehyun says. Because he lost the ability to be surprised by anything his friends say a long time ago. He pulls a hoodie over his short-sleeved T-shirt; it’s one of his nicer ones, one he doesn’t use for the gym, black with a rose design on the back. His left shoulder throbs a bit while he puts it on, still a bit sore from this morning, and he rolls it a few times to get rid of the pinching sensation. “You say crazy shit all the time, you have mysterious connections and you’re somehow behind every single bad decision I’ve made since I met you.”

“Aww, thanks, babe,” Beomgyu says sweetly. “By the way, are you wearing that hoodie?”

“Yeah,” Taehyun says, a little wary. “Why?”

“Nothing, nothing. The short sleeves of the shirt made your arms look good, I thought that was what you were going for.”

“It’s still April.” He crosses his arms defensively. “And we’ll be in the middle of the woods. It gets pretty cold at night, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah, ahjussi. At least this one makes your chest look nice. Like a pair of hardened steamed buns.”

Taehyun decides to graciously ignore that last comment. Because he’s mature like that.

Right then, Kai decides to finally come out of the bathroom, arms outstretched triumphantly like he completed a difficult feat. “I’m done! Are you guys ready?”

Kai usually goes for comfortable, baggy clothes or cute animal prints, but he always looks nice when he actually decides to dress up. He’s wearing make-up, light enough that it’ll probably be barely noticeable in the dark, but it gives his uncommon features that extra something that makes him look a little ethereal. An image that is supported by his long blond hair and his dangly silver earrings (he bought them after he saw Yeonjun’s, presenting them to Taehyun like a happy puppy with a new toy). He looks like a fairy prince. This Soobin guy will probably shit his pants when he sees him

(and if he doesn’t, then Taehyun will just have to make sure himself that he’s suitably grateful to receive Kai’s affections).  

“Sure. Just a moment, though,” Beomgyu says, answering his question. “Do you have a spare toothbrush somewhere? I don’t want my breath to smell like sweet potato the entire night.”

“You shouldn’t have eaten the crackers, then, hyung,” Taehyun says, just to be a brat, at the same time that Kai says, “Ohhhh, hyung, plan on kissing anyone tonight?”

“Gross,” Taehyun says, trying to erase the mental image of Beomgyu kissing someone—anyone— from his brain.

“My perfect lips are reserved for the chosen ones only, my dear and lovely Huening Kai.” He sweeps past him into the bathroom, in search of the cup of spare toothbrushes they keep under the sink, because Taehyun thinks that dental health is very important.

“That’s a lie, hyung. You love pretty people,” Kai says, deceivingly innocent.

“Ya! Are you calling me a slut?”

“Nooo,” Kai says, waving his hands even though Beomgyu can’t see him. “I’m just saying you like pretty people and you like kissing. And you’re not usually picky about the pretty people you’re kissing. There’s nothing wrong with that!”

“I’ll keep my eye on you, Huening Kai. You better watch your back. And don’t think I didn’t hear that ‘gross’ comment, Kang Taehyun.”

Taehyun sighs.

“Can we just go?”

Later, Taehyun will remember the night in flashes—short scenes that succeed one another, vibrant and hazy, like film rolls out of order.

He remembers leaving the dorm and walking into the forest on the north-end of campus; the party was taking place where a lot of parties took place around here: in the middle of the mountains. It was probably the reason that a lot of Seoullites called them country bumpkins—not that any of the Gwanak residents seemed to care. Small gatherings were usually hosted in dorm rooms— or common rooms if you had a cool RA—but in general their idea of a civilised party was a nicely sized clearing in the middle of the woods.

You’d think that walking around drunk at night through the mountains was a massive safety hazard, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but Taehyun has the theory that once you enter the campus you automatically develop a special survival instinct that prevents you from breaking your neck on random protruding roots. Also, the path leading to the clearing they’re headed to is wide and easy to follow, and not very long.

So they cover the short trek to the right place without problems. Taehyun’s memory is still intact at this point, and he remembers seeing the light and hearing the music before they even got there, Beomgyu’s voice a constant flowing stream at his side.

The place itself is a relatively well-sized clearing with trees on all sides. Someone had taken the effort of stringing fairy lights between the branches, and someone else—probably theatre majors—had brought a few strobe stage lights to light up the place. There’s also a plank of wood on one side, like the ones the ahjummas used to use to sit on in the streets, that had been there since the first time Taehyun came here last year (which was honestly quite disgusting, actually. He doubted anyone had cleaned the thing since it was brought here, and who even knows when that was).

Surrounding it, Taehyun can see coolers full of soju and beer, a few empty bottles already on the floor. A couple of people are sitting on chairs propped up against some trees, talking and drinking.

“Hey, you made it!” a voice calls out. A tall guy in dark clothes comes over to them, cheeks flushed and grin tipsy.

“Hey, Juyeon. Thanks for inviting us, man,” Beomgyu says, hugging him around the bottle he’s holding. “These are Taehyun and Kai, ’02 liners.”

“Cool! The more the merrier, man!” he says, and bows a little drunkenly. “I’m Juyeon. Come, come! There are drinks over there.”

He leads them to the coolers, where they each grab a bottle of soju, and then quickly disappears again to greet someone else.

Which is not surprising, since there are a lot of people here. Taehyun was expecting the party to be packed, given how many people knew about it, but the big crowd still takes him by surprise. There are people dancing to the music coming from the speakers, mingled with groups of people talking or playing drinking games on the floor, without a care for getting dirt on their clothes.

This is the point where Taehyun starts drinking, but this early his memories are still clear.

He talks with Kai and Beomgyu for a while, and a couple of Beomgyu’s art friends join them (thankfully no one from Hyunjin’s group. Taehyun knows there’s a probability of seeing him here and he is mentally bracing himself for the awkwardness).

But then Beomgyu gets dragged away by a guy Taehyun doesn’t know, who claims Beomgyu just has to see this (whatever this is). So he and Kai stay behind until Kai sees Soobin in the crowd. Taehyun only knows it’s Soobin by the way Kai’s face just lights up like a Christmas tree. And, of course, he immediately drags them over to him to introduce them.

The guy is ridiculously tall, even taller than Kai, and Taehyun resigns himself to remain the shortest in their friend group. He seems nice, though—a little shy and soft-spoken, with the dimples Taehyun has heard a million praises about on display every time he smiles. And, most importantly, he seems as smitten with Kai as Kai is with him. His heart-eyes could probably be seen from space, so maybe Taehyun will have to reschedule his shovel talk for another time.

Soobin introduces them to a friend of his, Ryujin, a girl with cool bangs and a lot of style who is nice, if a little blunt—but in an honest way that Taehyun appreciates. She’s a year older than him and makes him call her noona straight away.

Kai and Soobin try to make them feel included in the conversation, which is nice of them, but it’s obvious that they only really have eyes for each other, and Taehyun and Ryujin end up exchanging many an exasperated look at their antics, until she rolls her eyes one final time and grabs him by the elbow. “I see some people playing games over there. Taehyun here looks like a pretty competent guy, so I’m taking him with me. Not that you’ll notice our absence,” she mutters under her breath.

“Okay, have fun!” Kai calls after them. He doesn’t seem excited that they’re finally leaving them alone, but he doesn’t sound upset about it either. “I’m so glad you’re making friends, Taehyuinie!”

“God, he’s so embarrassing.” He rubs a hand over his face while Ryujin drags him away.

“He’s cute,” she shrugs. “But he and Soobin were starting to drive me crazy. If I have to listen to that tall idiot whine about how Kai is too perfect for him one more time, I’ll punch him in the face.”

“I think Kai would be a bit sad about that. He loves that face. And then I’d have to fight you because you made Kai sad, which wouldn’t be a very good start to our friendship.”

“You do have big arms.” She pokes at his bicep a couple times like she’s testing the consistency of dough. He cups a hand protectively over it—she’s got very long purple nails—, and takes a preventive step away from her. He happens to look up at that moment and sees Chaeryong among the growing throng of people, leaning against a tree. He starts to raise a hand to wave at her—he didn’t know she was coming as well— but she’s glaring at him so intensely that his hand falters. He hasn’t even done anything now! He loses sight of her among the bodies of people dancing and fooling around before he can do anything about it, though. And then his attention gets pulled back to Ryujin when she says, “I still think I could take you in a fight, though. I’ve got a mean punch.”

“So do I,” he says, a little indignant and trying not to show it.

“I’ve got a black belt in Taekwondo.”

He swallows a bit, but he is, unfortunately, way too competitive to back down. “I’m great at kickboxing.”

She scoffs. “Okay, boxing boy. Let’s test that out someday. But for now, tell me, are you as good at drinking games as you are at kickboxing?”

“Absolutely,” he says, firmly ignoring his latest beer pong loss.

She links arms with him again. “Then let’s kick some ass.”

The night starts getting a little fuzzy from that point onwards, but he does remember some things:

They don’t find any beer pong tournaments like Taehyun had originally wanted, but they do find a group of people gathered around a folding table someone brought, cheering on an intense-looking bottle-cap race. He and Ryujin join in on the next round, facing off against two Health Science’s students. They have to drink every time a bottle cap falls off the table, and by the end Taehyun is a little drunker than he started but happily soaking in the glow of victory. His shoulder aches a bit from tensing it to hit the caps, but he ignores it and continues to win happily.

Then-

He's with a group of people he doesn’t know and Ryujin is high fiving him because they just won a round of Sam-Yuk-Gu. He doesn’t know how he got here but he’s having fun, and people keep offering him shots, even though he’s winning and he doesn’t have to take penalty shots. But he takes them, because he did come here with the intention to let loose a bit, after all.

He and Ryujin make a fearsome team, and even if he can’t quite remember the whens and the hows, he knows they managed to decimate a good number of games before she tells him, “I want a drink.”

“What?” he yells, because someone turned the speakers up higher and drunk people are bad at controlling their volume. He can’t hear her at all.

“I said I’m gonna get a drink!” she yells back. “Want anything?”

“Soju!” he tells her, and she gives him an ok sign before disappearing into the crowd.

Then-

His next memory (or at least the one he thinks goes next) is of watching some people play the Sense game and snickering when they inevitably fall on their asses every time they try to crouch down when they say a number. Alcohol and psychomotricity don’t really get along well. He played a round a while ago, when he and Ryujin were making their rounds on every single drinking game they could try to win (she’s even more competitive than him, and together they’re a real nightmare). They won the game (obviously) because Taehyun’s reflexes always beat everyone else’s in the Sense game and because Ryujin intimidated anyone who wanted to say the same number as her into submission.

He laughs again at a particularly funny fall, ignoring the way his own body feels pretty uncoordinated, and thinks that he’s truly glad he came out tonight. He feels light and relaxed—the most un-stressed he’s felt in a while. Oh, no. Will he have to thank Beomgyu after all?

And, speaking of which, where the hell is Beomgyu? Taehyun doesn’t think he’s seen him since the start of the night. It’s true that Beomgyu knows many people and is always flitting between  different groups at parties, but he’s also usually not one to ditch his friends the whole night. Did he end up hooking up with someone like Kai said?

He looks around trying to spot him in the crowd (he may not be as tall as his friends, but his height is still above average and generally allows him to have a pretty clear view over most people’s heads). And yet, he can’t seem to find him anywhere. Did he spontaneously disappear? Did his Gwanak instincts fail him and he got lost in the woods? Oh my god, what if he did get lost in the woods-

His thoughts come to a screeching halt when he sees him.

Not Beomgyu, who is still nowhere in sight, but Choi Yeonjun.

Yeonjun, who looks more handsome than ever with his newly cut black hair (oh god, when did that happen?) and sleeveless shirt that shows all his arms and collarbones (oh god).

Taehyun really can’t look away from the hair. He got so used to seeing it long and pink that it’s a shock to see the change. It’s so dark and short, and Taehyun doesn’t know when he changed it, but now he has it pushed off his forehead and Taehyun can see his eyebrows, and wow, he needs to stop being weird about it like, now.

But, damn, Yeonjun looks good.

It’s not like it’s a surprise, since he always looks good, but the fact that Taehyun wasn’t expecting to see him here makes it all hit harder somehow.

He’s talking to a group of girls who seem completely infatuated with him, laughing and beaming up at him. Not that Taehyun can blame them. They’re very pretty, and Yeonjun is listening intently to what one of them is saying, a thumb pressed against his bottom lip in thought.

Taehyun’s muddled brain briefly entertains the idea of going over to him to say hi (something about a compensation for something? Whatever, that sounds like a problem for future Taehyun), but just then a guy throws an arm over Yeonjun’s shoulders and joins in on their conversation.

Oh.

Taehyun recognises that lavender hair; that’s the guy Yeonjun called Wooyoung when they were at the pond that time. He’s beautiful as well, and Taehyun wonders if all of Yeonjun’s friends look like models. Wooyoung says something, and tugs Yeonjun closer when he laughs.

Taehyun’s stomach twists like it did when he saw them play-wrestling on the pond, but he tells himself that he’s being ridiculous and that he needs more soju, so he turns away, stumbling a little.

And, speaking of soju—where did Ryujin go? She said she’d be back with drinks, but he hasn’t seen her in a while. Oh, no— what if Taehyun really was wrong about his immune-to-the-wilderness theory? First Beomgyu and now Ryujin. What if they fell down somewhere in their drunkenness? There are plenty of rocks and fallen trunks around here to crack open a skull. Not even Beomgyu’s hard head would be invulnerable to that. Is the universe trying to prove him wrong and punish him for his hubris by taking away two of his friends?

He weaves through groups of people talking and dancing like a needle through mismatched patchwork, looking around frantically while his thoughts spiral into all types of worst-case scenarios—Beomgyu lying unconscious on the ground, Ryujin hitting her head, Beomgyu breaking an ankle on a treacherous root and not being able to walk back, Ryujin being-

-right there, talking with Chaeryong.

Okay, not what Taehyun was expecting.

But at least she looks perfectly fine. She looks more than fine, actually. She’s laughing brightly, one perfectly manicured hand resting on Chaeryong’s elbow.

And—is Chaeryong smiling? Without a trace of sarcasm or self-sufficient mockery? Wow. Taehyun must be drunker than he’d thought, because there’s no way that that sweet-looking Chaeryong is real.

He shakes his head, and the world shakes a little with it. He stumbles a bit over an invisible obstacle. Alcohol makes his body feel like a stranger, but he’s reached the level of drunk where he doesn’t mind.

He still feels pretty energetic, though, and his left shoulder isn’t bothering him anymore (or at least, he doesn’t feel it, which he counts as a win), so he decides to try his hand at a few more games. It doesn’t look like Ryujin is coming back, so he’ll have to make do on his own.

At some point, however, the alcohol in his system starts to truly get in the way of his coordination and agility of mind. Annoyed, he tries to find a solution. He needs to find a way to be, if not completely sober, at least a little more clear-headed. The usual solution of just letting the alcohol slowly make its way out of his bloodstream would take too long, though. Sleeping it off would also waste too much time.

Damn it. It’s like the soju that was helping him have so much fun has turned out to be a slow-working poison impeding him from doing what he wants. Okay, maybe a little dramatic, but- Oh. That’s it. If alcohol is a poison, then he just needs to get his body used to it by giving it small doses until it gets used to it and becomes immune and goes back to normal. What a great idea. He needs to test his theory immediately. He’s sure the experiment will be a success. It’s amazing how Taehyun can still surprise himself sometimes with his own genius.

He pulls away from the group of strangers he was with (where they playing something? Talking? Taehyun doesn’t remember) and a chorus of drunken voices try to get him to stay. “I need to drink more”, he says, and one of the voices answers with a supportive “Don’t we all”. Taehyun doesn’t think they get the importance of the mission he’s in, but they let him go without further protest.

On the way to where he thinks the coolers are (his sense of direction isn’t the best at the moment) he bumps into someone and grabs them by the arm to avoid toppling them both over.

“Oh! I’m so sorry, I- Oh. Taehyun, hi!” The person says. And it’s nice that they seem recognise him, but unfortunately Taehyun has no idea who they are. Also Taehyun’s vision is a little blurry right now, for absolutely no reason he can think of, but it’s a little annoying.

Still, he doesn’t want to be rude, so he says “Hi” back to the- boy? Around his age? He guesses? Who is smiling shyly at him like they know each other, and Taehyun is really truly sorry but he still has no idea who this guy is.

“It’s nice that we really did meet here,” the guy continues, oblivious to Taehyun’s mental lapsus. “I mean, since you said you were coming this morning. And since I’m here with Jake and Jay. Like, it’s cool. That we saw each other, hahaha.”

“Yeah. ‘s cool,” Taehyun says, brain working at quarter speed.

“So, what are you up to? Um,” the guy goes a little red, “I mean, you’re here, so obviously this is what you’re doing, haha, but I meant-“

At the mention of what he’s doing, Taehyun suddenly remembers his alcohol-weaning mission again, and he says, without even realising he’s cutting the guy off mid-sentence,

“I’ve gotta go. It was nice talking to you, uh…” shit, he still doesn’t know the guy’s name. He goes on, hoping the other didn’t notice. “Yeah, it was nice. But I’ve gotta go, so. Bye.” He finishes lamely, and is already gone before the guy can get another word in.

And then, the next thing his memory can conjure up-

He can hear the laughter and music of people dancing and having fun behind him, but he’s too busy staring at the crate of beer in front of him to pay much attention to anything else.

Occasionally, a couple of people will come by to grab a drink. Some even try to talk to him, but Taehyun ignores them, too. He contemplates his options, crouching on the ground over a few packs of beer like some kind of alcoholic dragon hoarding its treasure.

Except Taehyun can only wish it was treasure. Or soju. He’d settle for soju. But there isn’t any left; trust a bunch of college students to burn through several full crates of soju in a matter of hours. Taehyun himself can’t say he’s fully exempt from guilt; he already drank a bottle. Or two. (Plus the shots people kept offering him on all those games, but who is counting those?)

But now there aren’t any left. And that sucks so much it’s unbelievable. What is Taehyun supposed to do? He can’t drink beer. He hates beer. It always tastes like piss. He’s pretty convinced everyone who claims to like it is just in on some collective joke to get poor, innocent losers like Taehyun to drink it.

He sighs. This is not helpful at all to his experiment. Not- mm, what was the word… product? Productible? He looks up at the night sky, the stars much more visible up here, away from the campus lights, glittering like jewels in a dark cave. His tongue feels dry and heavy in his mouth. What was he thinking about?

He feels movement behind him, but again he doesn’t pay it any mind. Everyone’s moving behind him; it’s a party, they’re dancing and chatting and moving. Moving is good. Healthy. Taehyun will get right back on that as soon as he finishes contemplating whether to drink the beer or not. Oh, right, the beer. That’s what he was thinking about.

And then a hand lands gently on his shoulder, and a voice is saying, a slight trace of worry colouring it, “Hey, man. Are you alright?”

Taehyun turns his head back and up, to the person standing behind him. Actually, maybe he won’t need to get back into movement—the world around him seems to be moving just fine on its own.

It takes him a couple seconds to focus his vision, and even then, with whoever it is standing against the fairy lights tangled in the branches above their heads, they remain mostly in shadow. He can tell that it’s a man, at least. A very tall man.

And then the man leans down to his eye-level and says, “Taehyun?” and suddenly Taehyun knows who it is.

Because that’s Choi Yeonjun standing over him, with his newly cut black hair that should be as illegal as the pink one, and flared pants that should look ridiculous in the middle of the mountains, in some stupid college party, but which only serve to make his legs seem even longer than usual. And now that Yeonjun’s face has come closer he can see that he’s wearing glitter and subtle eye make-up that makes his eyes seem sharper and even more beautiful. Taehyun’s brain is already muddled enough without adding Yeonjun to the mix; this shouldn’t be fair.

“What are you doing here?” Yeonjun asks, since Taehyun still hasn’t said anything.

“I am very drunk,” he says, a sorrowful note to his voice.

Yeonjun scans his face for a few seconds before he breaks, laughing. “I can see that.”

Taehyun nods. It’s good that Yeonjun can see the state of the situation. “So I need to drink more,” Taehyun continues.

“What?” Yeonjun says. “No. No, I think that’s actually the opposite of what you should be doing-“

But Taehyun is already shaking his head (which might not have been a good idea, in retrospect, since now the world is just moving faster than before).  

His heel slips a little from his crouch, and when he sways a little to the side Yeonjun’s hand shoots out to stabilize him, alarmed. “Whoah, careful.”

“I’m fine,” Taehyn says, then thinks about it and decides to just sit cross-legged on the floor, just in case. The floor is good. Sturdy. “I’m fine,” he repeats, this time with more conviction. Until he remembers his predicament. The corners of his mouth pull down. “But there isn’t any soju left.”

“Something tells me you’ve had enough of that already,” Yeonjun says, amused, and sits down in front of him, too.

Taehyun makes an alarmed noise and reaches out with his hands to stop him. “What are you doing? You’ll get your pants dirty.”

“So will you,” Yeonjun says, not making any move to get up. And, okay, fair. Taehyun’s hands fall down without a purpose, landing on the artfully-frayed ends of Yeonjun’s pants.

“But yours are nicer,” he says, and if he were sober he’d be embarrassed by the slight pout in his voice and the way he starts absentmindedly tangling a loose thread of Yeonjun’s pants around his index finger. He used to do that a lot when he was little—whenever his clothes had a frayed thread he would just loop it around his fingers over and over again until it broke or his clothes ripped. His mother used to scold him a lot about it.

“It’s fine. I can just wash them later.” Yeonjun’s voice sounds a little off, and when Taehyun looks at him to see what’s up, he sees that he’s also looking at Taehyun’s finger, before quickly looking up again when he sees Taehyun watching him.

“Oh, sorry,” Taehyun says, taking his hand back. That was weird, right? Touching his clothes without his permission? Yeonjun’s probably weirded out and worried that Taehyun is messing up his clothes even more. “Sorry,” he repeats.

“No, it’s okay. I- don’t mind.” Yeonjun runs a hand through his hair. Taehyun’s eyes fixate on the way the black strands fall back on his forehead. “Why do you say you have to drink more?”

Taehyun blinks, slower than he means to, because it feels like there’s sand behind his eyelids. “They say you have to drink more to cure a hangover.”

“Okay… Not taking into account whether that’s true or not… You aren’t hungover yet. You’re still drunk. How is drinking more supposed to help?” Yeonjun pouts his mouth slightly when he’s confused, which is news to Taehyun, but he doesn’t feel emotionally prepared at the moment to deal with whatever cute habits Yeonjun may have, so he decides to just focus on explaining his plan instead.

“No, but if I want to avoid having one alto- altoge- altogether,” he enunciates each syllable slowly through the sluggishness of his tongue—like hell is he going to let alcohol defeat him—, “I need to slowly wean off my intake of alcohol and combine it with dos’s- doses of water so that my body doesn’t react as badly to the sudden cut off.”

Yeonjun raises an eyebrow. “You had trouble saying ‘altogether’ and ‘doses’ but you were fine with ‘wean off my intake’?”

Taehyun frowns. “Did you hear anything I just said?”

“Yeah, sure did. I heard all about your plans to go into an alcohol-induced coma.”

“No. I won’t. It’s an experiment. And it will work,” he says, hitting his knee for emphasis. Yeonjun is very beautiful, but he’s clearly not on the same wavelength as Taehyun and his brilliant plan. But that’s okay, Taehyun can show him. “You’ll see.”

Time to put his plan into action. Not with beer, though, he decides. Beer is gross. He’ll have to find something else.

He gets up to see if anyone has some soju they can spare—maybe someone has an unopened bottle somewhere—but he miscalculates the impulse needed to get up and ends up stumbling a little with the extra momentum.

“Hey, whoah, slow down,” Yeonjun says, swiftly getting to his feet and trying to catch him before he falls.

But Taehyun has already righted himself. He holds up a hand to stop him, “It’s okay, ‘ve got this. Stay here. ’m gonna get soju and show you,” he says. He narrows his eyes at him, even though currently Yeonjun’s face is slightly out of focus, “Seriously, don’t move.”

“Okay,” Yeonjun says, voice full of amusement and exasperation, and maybe something else that Taehyun can’t quite pin down, focused as he is on his search for more soju. “But how about this,” Yeonjun continues, “I’ll help you find your soju if you let me come with you. And then you can show me.”

Taehyun considers this for a few moments, but he can’t find any faults to Yeonjun’s offer. He gets an extra pair of hands involved in the search, he gets to prove his experiment to Yeonjun, and he gets to keep Yeonjun’s company for a while longer. It’s a win-win situation.

“Okay,” he agrees. And now that Yeonjun’s in, he can admit, “but I don’t know where to find more soju. Beer is gross, so we need soju,” he emphasises, because that’s important.

“Of course we do.” Yeonjun still sounds a bit like he’s trying to suppress a laugh, so maybe he’s not fully on board with the plan yet, but it’s fine as long as he helps Taehyun. “C’mon, I think I know where we can find some.”

“You do?” Taehyun asks, hopeful.

“Yep. This way.”

Yeonjun places a hand on the small of his back to guide him—probably more to prevent Taehyun from tripping over and dying than for any other purpose, but Taehyun’s heart still stutters a bit in his chest.

They walk right in front of one of the strobe lights someone set up against a tree, the sudden brightness hitting him straight on and making him a little dizzy. He closes his eyes to escape the overwhelming glare. He blinks-

and this time it’s the blueish glow of fluorescent lights that’s hurting his eyes.

He’s sitting in a small café, forehead pressed against the cool glass of a window. The fake-leather couch beneath him squeaks when he sits up straight, disoriented.

How did he get here? What time is it?

He looks around him, trying to get his bearings. It’s still dark outside the window, so not that much time must have passed since the party. He can tell he’s in a café by the décor of the place, though at the moment all the tables around him are empty. Which- makes sense. It must be pretty late, right? What’s a café doing open at this hour, anyway? And, more importantly, how the hell did he get here??

He can hear a soft buzzing, maybe a coffee machine running, but he’s sitting towards the back of the room, and a cabinet full of cups and artsy trinkets is blocking his view of the counter.

He rubs his eyes to get rid of the uncomfortable desert-dryness that clings to them, trying to make sense of things. The last thing he remembers is being led by Yeonjun to get more alcohol.

Right. That’s why his head feels full of cotton- he’s still drunk. And he didn’t complete his experiment- or did he do it and he just doesn’t remember? But that would mean it didn’t work, because he still feels very much intoxicated-

Someone puts something down in front of him and he startles, drawing his hands away from his face.

“Here, this will help,” Yeonjun says as he sits down across the table. He’s set down a bottle of water that he pushes towards Taehyun, and two tall smoothies that he keeps for himself. Taehyun blinks at him.

“What?” he says.

“You should drink some water to stay hydrated. And I brought you a smoothie in case you wanted some sugar.” He pushes the second smoothie towards Taehyun, “You said strawberry, right?”

Taehyun has to make an effort to close his mouth.

“I…did?”

Yeonjun pouts cutely.

“You don’t remember? Did you blank out or something?”

“Uh…my memory’s a bit fuzzy right now. Did we walk down here?”

“Wow, you really did blank out.” Yeonjun pushes his hair back and Taehyun’s stupid animal brain kicks in again. He stares. He can’t help it. “You seemed pretty gone at the party. And I was a little worried you’d do something reckless, so I brought you down here— actually, maybe it’s for the best you don’t remember the journey down, because I had to save you from slipping and falling down the mountain a couple of times.” God, is it possible to want to die from humiliation but also be a little into the image of Yeonjun having to catch him in his arms to prevent him from falling? Luckily, Taehyun’s mind is too chaotic right now to spend much time mulling over these deep, philosophical questions.

Yeonjun goes on, blissfully unaware of Taehyun’s moral quandary.

“-so I thought you could use some water to sober up. This is the only café on campus that’s open 24/7, so. Here we are.”

Wow. Yeonjun is so smart, he thinks. And then,

“You’re so smart,” he says, because apparently he lost his brain-to-mouth filter somewhere on their way here. Whatever. Another problem for sober Taehyun. “How did you know about this place? That’s so smart.”

Yeonjun, who was just taking a sip of his smoothie—is that mint choco?— nearly spits it back out when he laughs.

“Ah, Taehyun-ah. Has anyone told you you’re very funny when you’re drunk?”

Taehyun frowns, trying very hard not to pout, too. “Are you saying I’m not funny when I’m sober?”

Yeonjun sets an elbow on the table and rests his chin on the palm of his hand, his pinkie pressed just under his eye.

“You’re always funny, in your own blank-faced way. But you’re even cuter like this. More open. Relaxed.” He smiles at him, eyes scrunched up and looking unfairly alive under the soulless fluorescent lights.

“Thank you,” he says primly, aiming for a joke, and instead having it land somewhere on the edge of too genuine, too flattered. He has a hunch sober Taehyun will probably want to kill him, but he doesn’t really care at the moment. He opens his bottle of water and takes a few sips.

“You’re welcome,” Yeonjun says, just as primly and a lot more amused. And yet he makes it seem like he’s trading laughter back and forth with you, and not directing it at you. “Anyways, to answer your question, I know about this place because I used to work the night shifts here a few semesters back.” He drinks more of his smoothie- yep that definitely looks like mint choco. Well. Nobody is perfect.

“Wasn’t it hard? Working at night?”

“Not really, no. It was pretty chill, since we didn’t have many customers. Mostly it was just students pulling all-nighters and infusing their veins with ice americanos. I did have to deal with the occasional drunkard every now and then, but it wasn’t so bad overall.”

Taehyun draws the bottle from his mouth slowly, setting it down on the table. He feels extremely tragic all of a sudden.

Yeonjun must notice the change in his behaviour, because he suddenly sits up straight and asks him, eyes wide and worried,

“What? What’s wrong? Are you feeling okay? Do you want to throw up?”

Taehyun shakes his head.

 “I’m drunk,” he says, like he’s confessing some great crime. “I’m the drunkard. ’ve become one of those people you had to deal with, hyung.”

Yeonjun stares at him blankly for a few seconds before he bursts out laughing.

“Ah, Taehyun-ah. Seriously, you’re going to kill me,” he says, once his laughter has calmed down a little.

Taehyun frowns, not knowing how he should take that, and still feeling bad about his behaviour, so Yeonjun lays a hand on top of his on the table and tells him,

“I can assure you, you’re nothing like them, Taehyun. So don’t worry. Drunk-Taehyun may have some strange theories, but he’s pretty well behaved.”

Mildly mollified, Taehyun nods and takes his first sip of the smoothie Yeonjun brought him. Oooh. Delicious.

“Is it good?” Yeonjun asks him, smiling, probably seeing the pleased expression on Taehyun’s face.

“Yeah,” he answers, happily drinking some more. “Strawberries are the best.”

“So you’ve said. Do you really not remember when we came in and ordered?”

“Not really. I have…” he waves a hand looking for the right word, only then realising that Yeonjun had still been holding it. He starts, flustered, but makes an effort to go on like nothing happened “-holes. Gaps. In my memory.”

Yeonjun makes a sympathetic face. “That sucks.”

Yeah, it does suck. Taehyun doesn’t like not being aware of all his actions. What if he does something really stupid? Even while still being a little drunk he can admit that Drunk-Taehyun doesn’t make the best decisions. In contrast, Yeonjun seems totally fine, sipping his smoothie, cool as a cucumber. Did he not drink tonight? Did he drink and he just has a really good alcohol tolerance?

A light-bulb switches on in Taehyun’s brain.

“Wait. I was supposed to…to sober up? With soju?” He frowns, trying to piece his memories together.

Yeonjun winces.

“Yeah… I was kinda hoping you wouldn’t remember that part.”

Taehyun frowns even harder, trying to remember. Something to do with small doses… Of what? Soju? But why? He knows it all made perfect sense to him a while ago, so why can’t he remember his plan or how he was going to carry it out now?

“Listen,” Yeonjun says, breaking him out of his brain-wracking. “Why don’t you try drinking the water and the smoothie for now, and if you still haven’t sobered up a little by then, we can try your crazy plan, okay?”

Seeing as how Taehyun can’t even recall his plan in the first place, that sounds like a good idea. Still,

“My plan wasn’t crazy.” (Whatever it might have been.)

“Uh huh.”

Taehyun narrows his eyes at him across the table.

“That didn’t sound convincing at all.”

“Wasn’t trying to,” Yaeonjun says with a cheeky smile, like he thinks he’s cute.

Taehyun would argue more, but Yeonjun is cute, damn it, and Taehyun’s too drunk for this. Though maybe Yeonjun’s plan is working, because he feels more tipsy than drunk the more sips he takes. The walk down the mountain probably helped, too.

“So,” Yeonjun says, twirling the straw in his drink with a finger.  “How come you never mentioned you were coming to the party? I would’ve looked for you sooner if I’d known you were there.”

“You didn’t mention you were coming either, hyung,” Taehyun points out.

“Okay, yeah, fair.” Yeonjun shrugs in easy acceptance. “But still.”

“I don’t know. I guess it just never came up.” Taehyun drinks more of the smoothie. It really is tasty. Yeonjun has such good ideas. “Beomgyu wanted us to come, and Kai was instantly sold when he found out the person he likes was coming too.”

“Oh, right, how’s that going? Does that mean you two won’t be stalking this poor unsuspecting person anymore?”

Taehyung glares at him, but the effect is probably lost due to the cute pink straw he’s currently drinking from. “It wasn’t stalking. Kai’s just an idiot. But yeah, they finally had a real conversation today, so hopefully Kai will stop dragging me along and just go with him.” If Yeonjun notices the slip of the pronoun, he doesn’t say anything. And besides, if Taehyun’s suppositions about him and that Wooyoung guy are correct, then he probably has no prejudices against guys dating other guys.

“That’s nice,” is all Yeonjun’s says in the end, and he sounds sincere.

“Yeah. They’re cute.” Taehyun thinks of Kai’s bright smile and Soobin’s dimples. “They spent the entire party glued to each other’s side. They’re probably still together right now.”

“Oh, no, were you their third wheel? Cute couples are way less cute when you have to put up with their PDA.”

Taehyun shrugs. “At first I was, but then me and a friend of Soobin- the person Kai likes- went off to play some drinking games, and that was fun.”

“Drinking games, huh?” Yeonjun raises an amused eyebrow. “Now I see why you ended up so drunk.”

“It wasn’t because I was bad at them, though,” Taehyun says, because it’s important that’s clear. “We won most of them.”

Yeonjun laughs. “Of course you did. Why did you drink so much, then? Don’t you know how penalty shots work?”

“I guess I just felt like it.” Taehyun drinks more water; the smoothie is great, but the sugar in it isn’t helping with his dry mouth.

“That’s fair. There’s nothing wrong with a night of fun every once in a while.” Yeonjun is still resting his arm on top of the table, and Taehyun has to keep his eyes from wandering to the skin exposed by his sleeveless shirt. “Are you done with your drinks?” Yeonjun asks him when he notices Taehyun’s finished with the water and the smoothie.

“Yeah,” Taehyun says. He can’t help feeling a little disappointed; now he doesn’t have any excuse to stay here chatting with Yeonjun. The disappointment only deepens when Yeonjun stands up and says they should start heading out. But he forces himself not to show it, just nodding and standing up from the table as well.

He needs to go to the bathroom, so he tells Yeonjun to wait for him and then they can pay for their drinks. His legs still feel a little wobbly as he walks to the bathroom, but his sense of awareness is much better than before and the fuzzy feeling in his head feels like it’s slowly ebbing out. Seems like Yeonjun was right about his plan being better, after all (though Taehyun is still sure that if he could just remember his own plan, it would make a lot of sense too).

When he washes his hands and steps out of the bathroom, it’s to find Yeonjun already waiting for him by the door. Taehyun sends a look at the bored girl in the counter, who is flipping the pages of a magazine with bright red nails and isn’t paying attention to either of them.

Taehyun walks hesitantly towards Yeonjun, but before he can say anything, Yeonjun tells him. “Don’t worry about it; I’ve already paid for both of us.”

Taehyun frowns. He doesn’t like feeling like he owes things to people.

“I can pay for myself.”

“I know,” Yeonjun says. He holds the door open for Taehyun like he thinks he’s Prince Charming or something. Taehyun would find it annoying if Yeonjun wasn’t so, well, charming. “Just think about it as a hyung doing something nice for his intoxicated dongsaeng.”

“First of all, I’m not even that intoxicated anymore,” Taehyun says, walking out of the café. He resolutely ignores the way his legs still feel like they’re stepping on sand. Very small patches of sand, though, which is much better than before. “And second of all, I’m going to keep that in mind. Get ready to be a hyung every time we need to pay for something from now on.”

“Sure,” Yeonjun says brightly, not sounding bothered by the prospect at all.

After Yeonjun follows him out and lets the door fall shut behind him they’re left standing in the middle of the sidewalk. It smells like night, and there’s a slight breeze picking up that ruffles the leaves of the trees around them softly. Now that Taehyun is outside, he thinks he recognizes the area they’re in. They’re near the Education buildings, if he’s not mistaken. It’s really quiet around them- either because this is a rather secluded place or due to the hour- in a way that almost makes Taehyun feel like he and Yeonjun are the only people on earth.

“What time is it?” he asks.

Yeonjun takes his phone out of his pocket and looks at the screen. The breeze ruffles his bowed head. “It’s- Oh, wow. 3:14. I didn’t think it was that late.”

“Oh.” Taehyun knew that the night had to end at some point, but the same disappointment that gripped him in the café sneaks past his defences now. This is the point where Yeonjun wishes him goodnight, tells him to take care or to not trip over and die on his way home; and then Yeonjun will be able to go back to the party or wherever it is he wants to go, instead of having to babysit a tipsy Taehyung. As he should, Taehyun tells himself. He should get to enjoy his night, so stop wishing you could keep-

“Hey, do you wanna hang out?”

The question is so sudden, so at odds with all of Taehyun’s calculations that it takes him a moment to process that those were words coming from Yeonjun’s mouth, much less decipher what they mean.

“What?” is all he can say in response. Which, okay, not his most eloquent moment.

“I mean,” Yeonjun starts, and if Taehyun didn’t know any better, he’d say he sounds a little nervous. But that’s impossible. The way his arms are pressed a little too close to his body is probably just because he’s a little cold in his sleeveless shirt, and not out of any nervousness in front of measly Taehyun. “I know it’s pretty late, and it’s totally fine if you just want to go home and sleep it off, but maybe we could still hang out for a bit.”

“You want to keep hanging out?” Taehyun repeats, just to be sure. “With me?”

“Sure.” Yeonjun shrugs. His casualness looks so easy, so effortless, that Taehyun wonders idly if he practices it in front of the mirror. “You’re fun.”

“You too,” Taehyun answers without thinking. Yeonjun gives him a blinding smile. The previous disappointment has completely bled off of him and he feels light like a blown balloon. He asks, “What do you want to do?”

Yeonjun contemplates this for a few seconds, pursing his lips in a way that makes him look like a duck. Taehyun can’t help smiling at the sight.

“Oh, I know!” Yeonjun’s face lights up excitedly. He comes forward and grabs Taehyun’s sleeve, turning him around and tugging him forward. “C’mon, you’re gonna love this.”

“Where are we going?” Taehyun asks, but doesn’t resist Yeonjun dragging him along.

“You’ll see soon. It’s not that far.” Yeonjun seems to want it to be a surprise, so Taehyun decides to just follow him and doesn’t ask further questions, which is an incredible show of restraint coming from him.

Yeonjun lets go of his sleeve- which Taehyun decisively does not pay attention to- and starts asking about Tehyun’s week. Nothing really notable happened to him lately, though, and he tries telling Yeonjun that, but eventually Yeonjun manages to drag details out of him that Taehyun doesn’t think would interest anybody. Except Yeonjun listens carefully to his recounting of his and Chaeryong’s rivalry and Beomgyu’s latest antics, humming ah-ing in the right places and asking questions that keep the conversation going. In turn Yeonjun tells him about a project that’s really kicking his ass lately and the R&B artist he just discovered, who he’s had on loop for days.

They go around the small extension of fields north of the Education buildings- which look a little creepy at night, since there are no lights illuminating the area- and past the Faculty Club, reaching a clump of buildings belonging to the Natural Sciences departments. Or was it the Engineering departments? Taehyun thinks he had a seminar around here last year, but he can’t really remember. He doesn’t think there’s a café or anything of note in this area, though, so he’s not sure why Yeonjun brought them here.

His confusion only grows when Yeonjun heads to one of the buildings on the outer limits of campus, and instead of going to the entrance (which would be closed anyways at this time) he goes around to the side of the building.

“What are you doing?” Taehyun asks, unable to restrain himself anymore.

“Shh,” Yeonjun tells him, eyes full of mischief. “You’ll ruin the surprise.”

He stops in front of a small door that looks like it has seen better days. Inexplicably, he bends down and starts looking around on the floor.

“Seriously, what-” Taehyun starts again, but stops abruptly when Yeonjun stands up with a triumphant “Aha!”

He shows Taehyun the small key he’s holding in his hand proudly. “The Science students always leave this under one of the rocks on the floor so others can open the door. But it’s harder to find when it’s so dark.” He pouts.

Taehyun is still focused on one part of what Yeonjun said. “What do you mean ‘open the door’? Are you planning to break in?”

“It’s not breaking in if I have the key,” he says, which misses the point so completely that Taehyun wants to shake him a little, beautiful boy or not.

“It’s a campus building. Any time you go in outside of teaching hours is considered breaking in. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t think there are any classes happening at 3 a.m.”

Taehyun only realises he’s whispering when Yeonjun asks him, “Why are you whispering? There’s no one here.”

Taehyun frowns at him. “You don’t know that. Campus security could be around here somewhere. And I really don’t want to get caught doing something stupid.”

Taehyun didn’t notice at first, but they’ve gotten so close while arguing that Taehyun can see Yeonjun roll his eyes even in the dark. “Relax,” Yeonjun tells him, like that word has ever worked on anyone. “If they weren’t there to break up the party that’s happening less than 20 minutes from here, they’re definitely not gonna show up on a random campus building at 3 a.m.”

“You don’t know that,” he tells Yeonjun. “And what do you even want to do? There’s nothing here.”

Yeonjun gives him a lidded smile, and Taehyun wishes he didn’t find it so attractive. “You’ll see.” And then, to Taehyun’s dismay, he starts fiddling with the lock until he gets it open. It makes a squeaky noise, like it hasn’t been oiled since the Bronze Age. Taehyun winces and looks around, but there really seems to be no one around. One positive thing about this is that he feels completely sobered up; nothing like the anxiety of getting caught committing a crime to really wake you up.

Yeonjun steps inside the building without hesitation and turns around to look at Taehyun. There’s something playful and triumphant in his eyes, like a kid that got away with stealing candy from the jar. It’s painfully endearing, despite the fact that he’s literally breaking into a building and Taehyun still kinda wants to shake him by the shoulders to knock some sense into him.

“C’mon,” he tells Taehyun from inside the door. “What are you waiting for?”

“This is a really stupid idea,” he says, because it’s important that Yeonjun knows that. “The stupidest idea anyone’s ever had.”

“If you don’t come in, you’ll never know what I wanted to show you.”

Taehyun narrows his eyes at him. Damn it. Taehyun’s will power is usually very strong, to the point where no one can sway him from his decisions if he doesn’t want to be swayed. The problem is that Taehyun is also a very curious person by nature and, even worse, he loves a challenge. He can’t deny that he feels a thrill at the thought of following Yeonjun inside and finding out what he has in mind.

“You’ve lost all rights to call me a thief or a criminal ever again,” he finally relents, stepping into the door. “This is much worse than stealing your spot at the library or whatever.”

“That’s fine,” Yeonjun tells him. He’s still smiling from ear to ear. “We can be criminals together.”

Taehyun keeps an impassive face to hide exactly how that makes him feel, even though it’s very dark inside the building and Yeonjun probably can’t make out his expression in the low light anyway. It gets even darker when Yeonjun closes the door shut behind them. They both turn on their phone lights and Taehyun can see for the first time the space he’s in. It’s very narrow, with four walls closing down on them and only the bottom of a staircase in it. It must be some kind of emergency exit.

“We have to go up,” Yeonjun tells him, beginning to climb the first steps. He looks behind his back at Taehyun to warn him, “Watch your feet; these stairs are pretty steep.”

They go up like that for a while, their phone lights casting strange shadows on the walls. It’s a very narrow staircase and it smells like dust and rust, like no one’s used it in a long while.

“This used to be an emergency exit,” Yeonjun tells him, confirming Taehyun’s earlier suspicions. “But they built another one on the other side of the building that’s newer and safer, so no one really uses it anymore.”

“How come you know about it?” Taehyun asks. He’s glad his legs are working properly again, because he doubts he would have been able to climb the twisting steps otherwise. Yeonjun’s back is a steady silhouette in front of him.

“A Biology student told me about it a couple of years ago. Apparently most Natural Science students know about it and they hang out up here often.”

Taehyun’s glad that he’s not even panting after almost five flights of stairs (the hours at the gym are paying off) but his thighs are starting to burn a little.

“And where exactly,” he asks, “is here?”

They’ve reached the last floor, which is only another small landing with a metal door on one side. This time Yeonjun only has to twist the handle a little to open it, and when he’s done he turns to Taehyun, winking at him. “See for yourself,” he tells him.

Taehyun does, curious despite himself. He steps past Yeonjun out of the door and the first thing he notices is the wind, stronger here than it was below. He’s on a rooftop, all open night skies and empty air around him. On the floor, instead of the surface of concrete he expects to find, he sees that it’s all covered in overgrown grass and weeds, wild and unkempt.

There’s a wooden bench on one side and even an unlit lamppost standing next to it (what a lamppost is doing on a literal rooftop, Taehyun has no idea). He directs his phone light down the rectangular surface of the rooftop and sees that near the end of it there’s a white pergola with four posts and an open roof, under which sits a small wooden table and four chairs, like those you would take camping.

“What-” he says, because he wasn’t expecting to find any of this.

“Cool, right?” Yeonjun says, stepping up beside him. “When I first came here, I made the same face. Apparently, they covered this in soil back in the day so Natural Science students could plant vegetables and stuff, like an eco-friendly garden or something. But after a while people stopped planting things and the teachers sort of forgot about it. So students took over and decorated it themselves, turning it into a cool hanging out spot.”

“That’s…impressive,” Taehyun says. And he really is impressed. “Did they install the pergola and the lamppost themselves?"

"I think they put up the posts themselves, but the lamp I’m not sure about. It might have been here originally.”

“Yeah, probably. Still, this place is pretty nice.”

“I told you, didn’t I? And you didn’t believe me.” Yeonjun puts a hand to his chest like he’s mortally offended, but he sounds pleased by Taehyun’s reaction.

Taehyun rolls his eyes at the antics, but he’s smiling too. “It’s not that I didn’t believe you. I just thought the whole sneaking in thing was stupid. Which, by the way, I still do.” He sends a pointed look at Yeonjun, which Yeonjun resolutely ignores.

“But aren’t you glad you followed me? You would have missed out on this otherwise.”

“As long as we don’t get caught,” Taehyun mumbles, but he is having fun, which he’s starting to discover might just be a Yeonjun side-effect. Yeonjun seems to hear in Taehyun’s voice that he’s not as against this as he says, because he smiles really big. Taehyun steps forward to inspect the pergola spot closer just so he doesn’t have to look directly at Yeonjun face and his disarming smile.

The table and chairs are worn down by constant exposure to the weather, old paint chipping away on the table’s surface and one of the chairs groaning dangerously when Taehyun sits down on it. Yeonjun comes over to sit down in front of him and for a while they both just stare at the view around them without saying anything.

Taehyun can see the gentle slope of dark mountains on one side and the outline of the university buildings on the other. They’re on the rising belly of a hill, which gives them a pretty good view of the entire extension of campus; in the dark the only distinguishable things are the stray lights of buildings and streetlamps, and the vague shapes they outline, but it’s still beautiful, like a dark see of stars reflecting the sky over their heads. It smells green and clean up here, like night and early spring. Taehyun takes a deep breath, trying to take it all in; you’d never be able to get this in the city.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Yeonjun finally breaks the silence, but when Taehyun looks at him his gaze still seems lost in the distance.

“Yeah,” Taehyun answers quietly. He feels oddly subdued, like Yeonjun and him have stepped into an invisible, fragile bubble that will break if he speaks too loud or makes any sudden movements.

“It’s really peaceful up here,” Yeonjun says, like he read Taehyun’s mind. “I used to come here alone a lot before last year, just to hear myself think.”

“What changed last year?” Taehyun asks.

They’ve set their phones on the table so that the phone lights are facing up, and Taehyun can see the outline of a rueful smile grace Yeonjun’s lips.

“I took a year off last year. I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of rumours about it,” he says, a trace of sour lemons in his voice. “I’ve certainly heard more than enough.”

“Well, unless it’s true that you’re actually a North Korean double spy who’s trying to gather intelligence for the army, I’m not sure how much I should believe.”

Yeonjun lets out a sudden laugh, and Taehyun is glad to have chased away that sourness from his voice if only for a moment.

“That’s a good one. I hadn’t heard that one before,” Yeonjun says.

“Well, it’s the only one I remember.”

Yeonjun smiles in response, but Taehyun doesn’t like the too-practiced slant of his mouth or the tired cast of his eyes. Taehyun wants to take a warm, soaked cloth and wipe at his expression until all traces of unhappiness are gone from his face.

“Does it bother you?” He asks Yeonjun. “The things that people say?”

Yeonjun is still not looking at him, gaze lost somewhere in the dark mountains.

“People have always talked. And I’m not saying that because I think I’m the centre of the universe, or whatever.” He looks at Taehyun, like he wants to make sure Taehyun understands what he’s saying. Taehyun nods; Yeonjun has always seemed confident to him, but not in an asshole way like he thinks he’s better than everyone else. He just seems comfortable in his own skin, secure in the certainty that he knows who he is. It’s one of the aspects Taehyun admires most about him. Yeonjun must be satisfied with what he sees on Taehyun’s expression, because he continues, “I just don’t dress the way people expect me to dress, or act the way they expect me to act. And then they talk, and draw their own conclusions, instead of asking me what I mean.” He sounds frustrated. “I wish people would just ask.”

Taehyun looks at him, and looks at him, and looks at him. At the dark circles that are barely noticeable under his eyes but are still there, at the way the darkness makes the first suggestions of stubble more visible on his jaw, at the line of his shoulders and the way the night air draws out goosebumps on his bare arms. At the way he looks like a boy right now, just a boy, more than he ever has. Without the glowing aura Taehyun cast on him without even realizing it, he is just a boy. Taehhyun can’t believe that he of all people, who only deals in facts, could get blinded by what Yeonjun appeared to be and not just focus on what he actually was. On the actual things he did and the things he said, instead of how people perceived them.

Because none of Yeonjun’s actions disappear after the glow is gone; he’s still the same person who apologized right away after their rough start at the library, the same person who tried to befriend Taehyun and make him feel at ease from the start, the same person who took care of a plastered Taehyun when he could have been enjoying himself at a party instead.

There is no glow anymore, no idolized version of a popular, cooler-than-cool guy, and what’s left is this: a boy, real and fallible, who has been nothing but good since Taehyun met him.

I will do better, Taehyun vows to himself. From now on I will be better; he’ll be who he is and I won’t impose my expectations on him. Satisfied with this resolution, Taehyun nods to himself. There’s also an excitement there, an irrepressible itch to know Yeonjun, as much as he lets Taehyun, that he hasn’t felt with any other person he’s met before.

He wants to gather Yeonjun’s truths like a magpie revelling in its jewels. He wants to know him inside and out and be known in return. Which is an insane thing to feel when they haven’t even known each other for that long. But those are all notions too big to deal with all at once; as a mathematician, Taehyun knows you must start small, draw out induvial operations before trying to solve the problem as a whole. So he starts small,

“What did you do last year, then?” He asks. “If you weren’t acting as a double spy on some secret mission, what where you doing?”

Yeonjun finally drags his gaze away from the horizon it had wandered to, focusing on Taehyun like he’s seeing him for the first time. It reminds Taehyun of how Yeonjun had looked at him in Jahayon pond, like he’d found something unexpected when he wasn’t looking for anything.

“I was in the U.S.” He smiles at Taehyun’s raised eyebrow. “I was actually born there, did you know? But I came to Korea when I was only 2 years old, so I don’t really remember anything about it.”

“Are you saying you’re actually American?” Taehyun asks. Taehyun’s experience with America is limited to what he’s seen in movies: glamour and sun, palm trees and beautiful people. He thinks Yeonjun would fit right in.

But Yeonjun pulls a face. “I don’t think living there for 2 years counts as being American. And I was a baby; I wasn’t even a whole person yet.”

“So why did you go back last year?”

“My aunt and cousins still live there- in L.A, to be more exact. My aunt is an interior designer, and she has a few contacts from people she’s worked for. One of her clients is the owner of a small fashion brand, and she heard they were looking for people to do an internship with them, so she told me about it and I applied. At first I did it just to see, to put myself out there; I didn’t expect to actually get selected. But I did, so I took a sabbatical year off uni and did the internship until the contract finished after a year.”

“Wow,” Taehyun says, not bothering to hide how impressed he is. “That’s so cool, hyung. Moving across the world alone to do what you want to do. That’s so brave.”

“Ah.” Yeonjun rubs the back of his neck, abashed. “Not that brave. I mean, I stayed with my aunt, so I wasn’t really alone; I knew I had a safety net there.”

“Still,” Taehyun says. “You were working in a whole different country with a whole different culture and a new language. That can’t have been easy.”

“It was a bit difficult to adapt at first,” Yeonjun admits. “My English was pretty good, thankfully, but they do things differently over there, so it took me a bit to find my footing. Like, there’s no half-measures in America, you know? Everything is go big or go home,” he says that last part in English, putting on a voice like he’s imitating someone else. “But at the same time, it was very exciting. I definitely worked way more hours than I should have, but I also learned so much. About the industry, and about myself.  It allowed me to see the real ins and outs of fashion, and to challenge myself to do things I never thought I would have been able to do otherwise.”

“I’m glad, then,” Taehyun says. “That you liked it, and that it was useful to you.”

“Yeah,” Yeonjun says, something almost wistful in his eyes. “It was definitely something. I feel like I grew so much in just a year.”

That makes something click in Taehyun’s brain.

“Wait,” he says. “Then how old are you? If you’re in your fourth year but you should be a year ahead, then…you’re a ’99 liner, right? Or- ’98?”

“’99,” Yeonjun says, scowling like he already knows what’s coming.

Taehyun lights up. Oh, this is even better than being able to tease Beomgyu for being a year older.

“My apologies,” he says, bowing politely in his chair just to be a little shit. “I should have been more respectful; I didn’t realise I was speaking with a grandpa.”

“Ya!” Yeonjun says, raising a fist theatrically. He’s aiming for an annoyed expression, but the effect is undermined by the way the corners of his lips keep twitching.

“Don’t worry, haraboji. I’ll mind my manners from now on.”

“Harabo-“ Yeonjun opens and closes his mouth incredulously. Taehyun is delighted. “Ya! I’m only three years older than you, brat!”

“You were born in another century, hyung,” Taehyun says, face all serious and sympathetic. “I know it’s hard to accept, but it’s really nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’ll have you know that I’m on my prime,” Yeonjun pouts.

“Mmh. I’m sure you are.” Taehyun receives a glare for his condescending tone and he can’t hold the impassive expression any longer; he laughs.

Yeonjun laughs with him, shaking his head exasperatedly. “You really are a brat, has anyone told you that?”

Taehyun hums in assent, still laughing. “Yes, daily. But it’s mostly Beomgyu hyung, who is the biggest brat of all, so it doesn’t count.”

Their giggles last longer than the joke deserves, but it’s that time of night that doesn’t belong to the real world, where the funny things are funnier and the sad things are sadder, and you feel like you and your body are two separate entities. Once their laughter does die down, Taehyun picks up their previous conversation again,

“But really, hyung, I think it’s really cool that you got to do that internship. Definitely cooler than the spy thing.”

“Eh,” Yeonjun says. “Spies are pretty cool.”

Taehyun observes him closely, trying to find any traces of that defeated sadness that settled on him before. But he seems loose and relaxed, leaning back on his chair, like being able to joke about it with someone who understands has taken a weight off his chest. Taehyun will take a comfortable, relaxed Yeonjun over a sad one any day.

Taehyun says. “Not really. Spies are too overdone. I mean, if people are going to start rumors, the least they could do is be original about it.”

“Of course.” Yeonjun sounds amused. “How rude of them. And what would these original rumors sound like?”

Taehyun looks at him seriously. “Well, they’re your rumors, hyung. You should think of something.”

“I should start my own rumors about myself? The ones I’m not supposed to know people say behind my back?”

“Exactly,” Taehyun nods. “If people aren’t going to bother asking for the truth, you shouldn’t bother telling it.”

There’s no moon out tonight, but the grin Yeonjun sends him makes up for it with its shine. Taehyun feels that restless feeling again, like he’d need hours on the mat with Hoseok hyung to be able to burn off the way making Yeonjun smile makes him feel.

“Yeah, that sounds fair,” Yeonjun says. “So wait, let me think. Mmmh, maybe I was…travelling the world looking for my long lost twin, who I didn’t know existed until I found an old picture of the two of us when we were children.”

“I think you’ve watched too many dramas, hyung.”

“Too cliché?” Yeonjun pouts, thinking. “Fine. Then…uhh…maybe I changed my major for the year and… joined a group of…uhh…marine biologists. On an expedition in… the Atlantic.”

“For an entire year?”

“Maybe we were looking for a very rare species. Very hard to find; took us months only to find its trail.”

“Uh huh. And what species was this, exactly?”

“The, uh, crabus…nocturnus.” Yeonjun is trying to keep a straight face, but clearly the memories of his adventures finding the mysterious crabus nocturnus are too much for him.

“I see,” Taehyun says. “And would this highly venerated species consist of…a crab? That’s very nocturnal?”

“Yes, that would be correct,” Yeonjun answers, while another crabus nocturnus memory visibly makes his face twitch.

“Fascinating. And did you manage to find this elusive individual in the end?”

“Of course,” Yeonjun laces his hands on the table like he’s being interviewed. It’s so endearing that Taehyun has to press a hand against his mouth to suppress a grin. “After long months of arduous search, we finally found its hideout. Unfortunately, it was the last of its species, and it died a tragic death at the hands of a very vicious shark.”

“Oh, no,” Taehyun deadpans. “How horrible.”

Yeonjun nods.

“Saddest moment of my life.” And then he doesn’t seem to be able to hold it anymore and bursts out laughing. Now that Taehyun has won their unspoken don’t-laugh battle, he allows himself to laugh too.

“A crab? Really?” he asks when he’s regained his breath a little.

“Hey! Don’t insult my rumor-making ways,” Yeonjun scolds, but residual laughter crinkles the corners of his eyes.

“I wouldn’t dare,” Taehyun says. “Besides, it was certainly original. Can’t say I’d heard of the crabus nocturnus before.”

“And you never will again, because the last one died tragically without descendance,” Yeonjun reminds him.

“Right. What a shame.”

“But, hey, now next time that someone acts weird with me I can just ask them if they’ve heard of the crabus nocturnus.” He says it brightly, but some of the previous despondency is back on his eyes and on the purse of his expressive mouth.

Taehyun frowns. “Weird how?”

Yeonjun flaps his hand dismissively. “Nothing. It’s fine. I’m just being whiny, ignore me.”

If anything, that only makes Taehyun frown harder.

“It’s not whiny to not like it if someone treats you badly.”

“Ah, I said ignore me.” He sends Taehyun a brilliant smile. It’s so stunning that it almost makes you forget you ever saw Yeonjun doing anything other than smiling. Which is probably its intended effect. “No one’s treating me badly, you can get that cute frown off your face; you’ll get wrinkles. Seriously, I just get mopey sometimes for no reason. Like when we met in the library, for example. Which, sorry again, by the way; I was just having a bad day.”

Yeonjun is looking at him again with that intense look he gets sometimes, and Taehyun feels his neck flush under the attention. He doesn’t know if Yeonjun does it on purpose or if that’s just the way his eyes are.

“Uh,” he says, hating how flustered he feels. “I told you, hyung, it’s fine. And I was rude back then too, so we’re even.”

Yeonjun quirks a small smile. “Guess we are.”

“But why were you having a bad day?”

“Huh?”

Taehyun’s not going to let him off the hook that easily. There’s something that’s clearly bothering him, now and back then, and Taehyun wants to know what it is and then grind it into dust until it disappears.

“That day,” Taehyun explains. “At the library. Why were you upset? You never said.”

“Ah.” Yeonjun sighs, resting back on his chair. The wind ruffles his hair and he shivers minutely. “I had just talked to someone. Someone I’d been seeing for a while.” Taehyun ignores resolutely the way imagining Yeonjun with someone makes him feel. “After talking to them, I realized we didn’t see our relationship in the same way. I don’t know, sometimes they acted like…like I wasn’t a real person, like I was just a character in a movie; intriguing, but not real enough to be of any consequence in their life. I guess it’s actually my fault, in a way, for not seeing it sooner and getting my hopes up. But it doesn’t matter; it’s over now.”

“Oh,” Taehyun says, feeling like everything he says will inevitably fall short. “I’m sorry, hyung.”

Yeonjun shrugs, graceful and charismatic as always. “It’s really fine. I don’t want to be with someone who only wants their made-up version of me. And it wouldn’t be fair of me to expect something from them that they’re not ready to give, either; so in the end it’s better for both of us if we go our own ways. I just had to mope it out for a little bit. But thankfully a little gremlin interrupted my brooding session by stealing my table, so at least that didn’t last very long.” He beams at Taehyun.

“Once again; it’s not stealing if it’s a public space,” Taehyun says out of habit. Yeonjun’s smile gets wider, and Taehyun narrows his eyes at him. It seems like the sadder the things he says are, the more exponentially charming he makes himself appear. Taehyun files that fact away to make sure he isn’t distracted from Yeonjun’s unhappiness so easily in the future. “And even if it was for the best, you still have the right to feel disappointed about it. If they didn’t make the effort to get to know you even after you started something together, then that’s just irresponsible of them. You deserve better.”

Yeonjun lays his chin on his hand, looking at Taehyun with his head tilted like he’s trying to figure out a particularly complex puzzle. His arms have goosebumps from the cold, but his gaze is warm. “Ah. It’s cute when you get all judgmental like that,” he tells Taehyun. “Especially when it’s in my honor. But I assure you, that’s all water under the bridge. I don’t even think about them anymore.”

Privately, Taehyun thinks that he’s only judgmental because whoever this person is, they deserve to be judged for not seeing how great Yeonjun is. Even if Taehyun has only just now seen Yeonjun without the shine he’d involuntarily cast on him, he knows that anyone would be lucky to know the real Yeonjun, worries and moodiness and all. He also thinks that Yeonjun is probably not as over it as he says he is; he may be over the person themselves, but the way they’d treated him will probably linger on his mind for a while, or he wouldn’t be talking about it now. That, Taehyun knows from experience- the things Hyunjin had said to him when they broke up flash through his mind, but he mentally bats them away quickly.

And then a shiver wracks through Yeonjun, and Taehyun is pulled from his thoughts.

“Are you cold?” He asks him.

“No,” Yeonjun assures him, lying through his teeth while he tries to suppress another shiver. “I’m fine. It’s just a little chillier up here than I thought.”

Taehyun raises an eyebrow at him.

“Maybe because you aren’t wearing the warmest of clothes right now, hyung.” He looks pointedly at Yeonjun’s bare arms.

“It’s April! It should be warmer by now,” Yeonjun whines, levity coming back to his voice. “And, hey, are you criticizing my choice of clothes?”

“They look very nice.” Taehyun’s very proud of how even his voice comes out, like he hasn’t been shamelessly ogling Yeonjun’s arms and general being all night. “And I’m not criticizing the choice of someone who studies design, but maybe a sleeveless shirt isn’t the most practical thing to wear outside at night.”

“Beauty should always come before practicality,” Yeonjun says loftily, but a hard shiver ripples through his body on the last syllable.

He’s ridiculous, Taehyun thinks. He can’t believe he finds someone who voluntarily ignored making a sensible choice endearing. He sighs, starting to take off his hoodie.

“What are you doing?” asks Yeonjun, who’s watching him with a raised eyebrow when Taehyun reemerges from the neck of his hoodie.

“Here,” is all Taehyun says as he passes it to Yeonjun, because he doesn’t know how to do things for people without being awkward about it.

“I told you, I’m fine,” Yeonjun tries to insist.

 Taehyun just pushes the hoodie closer to him across the table.

“What about you?” Yeonjun asks, eying the short-sleeved shirt Taehyun had under the hoodie. “Now you’ll be the one who is cold.”

“I was warm for longer, I’ll be fine,” Taehyun says, ignoring the way the cool air is starting to tickle his exposed arms. “Besides, you can consider it as payment for helping me out earlier.”

Yeonjun takes finally takes the hoodie and puts it on, if a little reluctantly. He’s taller than Taehyun, but Taehyun is a little broader, so the material sits a little loose around his shoulders. Seeing Yeonjun in his clothes makes something startled thrum against his chest, but Taehyun pushes the feeling away. They’re friends, he tells himself, he’s just doing something nice for a friend.

“Thanks,” Yeonjun says. “But helping you wasn’t a bother. You’re a cute drunk.”

Taehyun blushes despite himself, wishing desperately that it won’t be visible in the low light. “I’m a dumb drunk,” Taehyun corrects him.

His memories are still a bit blurry, but he remembers a couple of things he said and did while he was plastered, and he’s painfully glad he doesn’t remember all of it, or he’s afraid he’d instantly combust in embarrassment.

“Nah,” Yeonjun says, smiling softly and burrowing deeper into the chair, pulling Taehyun’s hoodie closer around himself. Taehyun looks away.

He tries to find a more comfortable posture as well, but his shoulder twinges in pain and he’s unpleasantly reminded of pulling it at the gym this morning. He must make a face, because Yeonjun asks him, worried,

“Are you okay?

“Yeah, it’s nothing. My shoulder just hurts from doing kick-boxing earlier.”

Yeonjun raises an eyebrow, something appreciative on his face. “You do kick-boxing?”

“Yeah. I started last year, actually. I was looking for something to burn off energy and get a good work out from it, and I found this. It’s actually really good for your body.”

Yeonjun’s eyes drop to Taehyun’s arms and he crosses them over his chest, self-conscious. “I can see that,” Yeonjun says.

“Uh, yeah. Do you do anything on your free time, hyung? A sport or something?” Taehyun asks, partly to direct the attention from himself and partly because he’s interested about finding out everything he can about Yeonjun.

So Yeonjun tells him about how he dances sometimes, but nothing serious, just every now and then with a group of friends. And then Yeonjun asks him about his favorite work-out routine and their conversation continues, fluttering from one topic to another with the ease of a bee settling on top of different flowers.

Time gets away from them, and by the time they notice how late it is, the sun is already stretching its first rays over the horizon. And even though they spent literally all night together (not like that, a voice inside Taehyuns head reminds him when his thoughts try to go somewhere else), Taehyun is still a little disappointed when he inevitably has to bid Yeonjun goodnight.

He tries to check his phone, but the battery is dead after using it as a flashlight for hours. Thankfully, he has the keys to his room in his pocket, so he doesn’t need to call Kai to let him in. When he finally comes through the door, he sees that Kai probably wouldn’t have heard his ringtone anyway, since he’s passed to the world, sprawled on his bed in a mess of blankets.

Taehyun crawls into his own quietly so as not to wake him, but despite not having slept all night, it still takes him a while to fall asleep. He keeps replaying every moment with Yeonjun, the way they were alone on a rooftop in the dark, just the two of them in a sea of darkness. He thinks about Yeonjun’s voice and Yeonjun’s laugh, his intense eyes and his expressive mouth.

By the time he finally manages to fall asleep, Kai’s soft snoring a familiar melody next to him, the sun is already completely up in the sky.