Chapter Text
Kang Taehyun is infuriating.
Infuriating, annoying, and the bane of Yeonjun’s existence, if he’s being honest. The problem isn’t just his existence. It’s the fact that he’s everywhere. Omnipresent or something.
He’s a permanent fixture on the Dean’s list, right ahead of Yeonjun’s name, on the fucking podium of some varsity sport Yeonjun has no idea existed in their school, and even more frustratingly, always at any party Yeonjun finds himself attending and on someone’s Instagram account when Yeonjun’s trying to peacefully scroll through his feed.
The problem isn’t that Taehyun’s life is happening. The problem is that everything seems so effortless for the man. The problem is that Yeonjun always feels steps behind Taehyun and his easy, bright grins and generally unbothered disposition.
Most importantly, the past three years they’ve been coursemates in college, Yeonjun’s never been able to overtake him in any academic ranking no matter how hard he tries. Meanwhile, Taehyun does so easily, all while managing to ace his co-curriculars and remaining like some sort of social parasite.
And meanwhile, Yeonjun has to pull two all-nighters just to make it to someone’s frat party, he'd had to stop going to those a while back just to make sure his grades didn't slip. It’s riveting, very fair indeed, and totally fair that Taehyun always looks so flawless, whether he’s sweaty after a race or stepping out of a three-hour paper.
Yeonjun detests it with all his being and he’s reminded of it every time his gaze lands on that very man, like now, despite the sheer number of dining facilities in their faculty, somehow, Kang Taehyun’s decided to have lunch with his friend in the very same cafe he’s slogging his guts out poring over his readings at.
Yeonjun recognizes the guy that Taehyun’s with to be Kai, which annoys him even more when he’s reminded that despite being a social butterfly, he still manages to have a close friend he’s loyal to. Where does he find the time and energy for all this emotional investment?
“You’re gonna rip that into shreds.”
Snapping out of his thoughts, Yeonjun looks to the source of the voice sharply, greeted by his own friend seated opposite him as he slurps on coffee, cheek propped up by his palm.
“What?”
Beomgyu raises his eyebrows, lazily flicking his pinky in the direction of Yeonjun’s notes, which he belatedly realizes have been shredded mindlessly by him.
“Oh. Sorry, got distracted.”
Sighing, Beomgyu looks unabashedly in Taehyun’s direction, drawing the attention of Kai, who waves back shyly.
Yeonjun clears his throat. “Solidarity and decorum, please.”
Being the traitor he is, Beomgyu flashes a smile – one of those million-watt ones reserved for a select group of people – at Kai. He only grows even more irritated when Taehyun glances at him with a smile and a tilt of his head.
He offers the man a generous roll of his eyes before stomping on Beomgyu’s foot. He misses completely, of course. Beomgyu’s known him for way too many years to fall prey to his attacks that easily.
“Stop being a rude bitch, you’re going to make Kai hate me like that.”
“I have nothing against Kai.”
“And everything against Taehyun.”
Scoffing, Yeonjun tries to focus back on his readings. “I have no time to waste on that sort of thing. Unlike him, I actually don’t get everything handed to me on a silver platter. If you’d excuse me.”
Beomgyu’s no stranger to his distaste for Taehyun. According to him, it’s ‘unfounded and stupid’, since Yeonjun doesn’t know him personally, but he’s generally unperturbed by Beomgyu’s differing opinions, so the boy has long given up on nagging at him.
“You’re such an asshole sometimes.”
Yeonjun genuinely does not give a fuck about Taehyun. Neither does he give a fuck about being an asshole to someone who doesn’t know him.
-
For all the time he’s spent going the extra mile to stay out of Taehyun’s way, Yeonjun realizes that luck’s something that could actually run out.
Because the assignment pairings for his Modern Literature elective plastered across the huge screen stare back at him mockingly, and the two names placed side by side are actually something right out of his nightmares.
Choi Yeonjun (SN00140002) | Kang Taehyun (SN00140115)
This cannot be real. Now he actually has to give a fuck about Kang Taehyun.
Beomgyu lets out a loud whoop, and it would grate his nerves a lot more were he not distracted by a tap on his shoulder.
He spins around, absolutely mortified to find Taehyun in the flesh.
Yeonjun hadn't even noticed the other man sitting right behind him. Or rather, he’d never even realized he shared this class with him. When the hell had that happened?
More importantly, there's an irritating smirk playing on his lips. A sincerely irritating one. If Yeonjun had ever felt bad for hating this man for the smallest reasons, he now has a new point added to his list.
Taehyun leans in, and Yeonjun feels his veins threaten to burst.
“Guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other from now on, Yeonjunie.”
-
“You know, I was recently introduced to some… media and the terms tsundere. Enemies to lovers… stuff like that. How do those sound? Relatable? You may want to consider them for your project.”
Unlike Yeonjun, who is organized to the T, his best friend is someone who operates on spontaneity. So, just when he thinks Beomgyu’s finally done making fun of his predicament with Kang Taehyun after 24 hours, he’s proven wrong. Choi Beomgyu’s brain works on a completely different schedule – one that doesn’t know when a joke has run its course.
“I was recently introduced to mixed martial arts, and picked up a few moves from some TikTok videos. Should I try them on you? Some force might help jolt your brain and give you ideas for your own project.”
Threats never work on Beomgyu and the man just laughs in his face. Boisterous and grating. Yeonjun seriously considers getting new friends.
“You know what’s crazier? Taehyun actually works part-time coaching newbies in boxing. You might wanna sign up for his training classes instead of learning moves from TikTok.”
Yeonjun doesn’t actually know that, and it only comes full circle in pissing him off even more. Yet another addition to the list of sidequests Taehyun is involved in. Does this guy even know focus?
“You only know that because Kai probably does it with him.”
“Ah, you’re right…” Beomgyu replies wistfully, eliciting a sigh from Yeonjun that goes ignored.
“Do you know how yummy he looks when all his muscles are flexing and he’s beating the shit out of the heavy bag with his cute face all serious and scrunched up? And then three minutes later, he melts after seeing me and becomes the cutest marshmallow going ‘Bbomgyu hyong, you’re here!’ Like does he know I want to eat him?”
He lets out a piercing squeal, and Yeonjun promptly kicks him out of the study room he’d managed to snatch, only by sprinting to the library once his previous class ended. Speaking of which, he has more things to worry about than Beomgyu being a pain in the ass. It mostly surrounds that awful project with Taehyun, which he is not the least enthused to even think about.
The worst part is that Taehyun matched his zealousness in wanting to get started on the project without any delay, which is why Yeonjun penciled a meeting for them in 15 minutes. He can’t deny that after working with a bunch of lazy bums in several projects, having a partner finally not complaining about his eagerness to start the project immediately is quite a breath of fresh air.
He supposes there may be some merits to the man’s work ethic, but that’s where it ends, because he realizes belatedly and with horror that this means he has little to no time to prepare himself for the dreaded encounter with Taehyun.
Jesus Christ, he’s meeting the guy in 15 minutes with annoyance still fresh in his veins. It dawns upon him again that it’s his first proper interaction with Taehyun given how he’d always ignored the other man’s needlessly friendly greetings.
Just looking at the assignment requirements kills Yeonjun inside. It’s a lot more commitment over the entire semester than he’d expected, and he’d really wished it could be something they could complete in a couple of sittings.
He maps out the next 14 minutes in his head. He’ll need about four minutes to wipe that scowl off his face, another three minutes to take a walk to refill his bottle, yet another three more minutes to wipe the scowl off his face, if it’s unsurprisingly found its way back—
“Hey Yeonjunie.”
He spins around in alarm, unpleasantly surprised to find Taehyun swinging the glassdoor open. His trademark annoying smirk is sitting on his lips as always, and despite being dressed in nothing more than a hoodie and cargo pants, he still manages to look more put together than Yeonjun feels.
“Why are you so early?!”
Something that Yeonjun gripes over often is punctuality, and Taehyun being early somehow pisses him off more, because this man should have no redeeming qualities, especially when Yeonjun’s already convinced himself that the other man gets his stellar grades without any effort.
Meanwhile, Taehyun merely raises an eyebrow at his greeting, the corner of his lip still upturned, as if he found Yeonjun’s admittedly uptight behavior entertaining.
“Because I don’t like being late?”
Fine.
Yeonjun hands him a copy of the assignment, which he’d taken the liberty to print, only to draw back in surprise when Taehyun flips open his file to reveal two copies of the same set of instructions.
“Great minds think alike, huh?”
“You and I are nothing alike,” he spits on autopilot, before the heat rises to his ears immediately. So much for wiping the scowl off his face.
“Sure, babe.”
Yeonjun doesn’t like how his ears burn hotter, and all he can do is shift their attention to something else.
“Before we start, I have a few ground rules.”
Yeonjun’s been told that working with him is like signing up for a boot camp, so he’s not quite sure what to think when Taehyun doesn’t seem unfazed, smiling and motioning for him to go on.
“First, given the nature of this project, I’d like to propose weekly check-ins. It might sound excessive, but consistency is important, and I’d like for us to always be on schedule.”
He expects some sort of teasing or protest, but Taehyun merely nods, as if he’s waiting for Yeonjun to go on without interrupting him.
“Uhm, alright, next, both of us should participate in every stage of the project. It’s never productive to work on projects relay-style because there’s no continuity, and even when we delegate parts in the later stages, the initial ideation should be done together. Which also means, we should keep each other updated on our progress if we split portions, so it’s easier for us to put everything together when the time comes.”
Taehyun nods again, and Yeonjun feels slightly unnerved when he finds the other man’s gaze trained on him.
“Okay, lastly, I drafted a schedule for the project. The weekly breakdown is here,” – he pulls a sheet of paper out from beneath the assignment – “everything is mostly fluid, in the event we change the direction of our plans, but I’ve highlighted the key checkpoints which must be kept to, since I’d like us to consult our Professor at those two stages so we make sure we’re in the right direction.”
His uneasiness morphs into nervousness as Taehyun takes the sheet of paper, scrutinizing it with nerve-racking silence. He knows Taehyun is academically strong, but with how active he is in his social life and beyond, he isn’t sure if being this organized and having so many check-ins is something he’s willing to commit to.
Besides, Yeonjun had often worked with coursemates who struggled to keep up with his level of rigor. More often than not, he’d hear some of them grumbling to their friends about his insane work ethic.
He doesn’t know Taehyun well, and if anything, he admittedly does have quite a number of preconceived notions about this man and his workstyle, so he’s taken aback when he reaches into his bag to pull out his diary instead.
“It’s mostly in line with what I had in mind, but I think we can afford to push the Week Four check-in to the fifth week, since we’ll be having a submission before this, and the Profs and TAs likely won’t be too excited to have to pencil in a consultation while they’re busy with grading.”
This time, Yeonjun genuinely can’t mask his surprise, though Taehyun doesn't seem to take offense, merely smiling with his eyebrows raised.
“You're okay with everything else? The schedule, the check-ins, the weekly meetings?”
There's a haughty air in the way Taehyun nods as if he's more amused that it seems like a big deal to Yeonjun.
“Why not? We both want to ace this project, as with everything else.”
He folds his arms, leaning back, and just before Yeonjun can consider despising him just about 1% less, he ruins it all with a single smirk.
“Besides, I'd love to see your pretty face up close weekly.”
Yeonjun snatches back the 1% instantly with red cheeks.
Red with anger, of course.
-
“It’s too corny,” Yeonjun finds himself commenting before placing Taehyun’s file down. It’s been barely a few days since their last meeting, and despite the short run time, he’s undoubtedly slightly impressed by the level of detail the other man has offered for each suggested research area.
The problem is that they’re all related to romance, and Yeonjun wants to roll his eyes before he even takes a better look at the list.
The man himself doesn’t seem offended by his comment. If anything, he seems to have expected their first official meeting to go exactly this way.
“I just don’t see the point in doing something related to romance. It’s not…”
“Not academic enough for you?”
Yeonjun sighs. “Romance is stupid. It cheapens the whole scholarly nature of this. I still think exploring something that has a larger purpose in society can offer more depth.”
It’s as if Taehyun fully expected his disapproval of this proposed direction, and he doesn’t even bat an eyelid as he takes his list of suggested research areas back to look over it again. If that’s the case, Yeonjun has no idea why he even bothered to suggest it, almost as if it was simply done intentionally to annoy him.
“Your perspective is exactly why I suggested this, actually.”
Sifting through his folder, Taehyun pulls out a set of papers.
“As the genre most widely associated with women, popular romance fiction has a long history of contempt, but in recent decades, feminist authors and critics have contested the validity of the scorn that romance novels elicit,” he recites, sliding a copy of the research paper across the table.
Yeonjun narrows his eyes. “I am not misogynistic. That’s not the reason I don’t want to do a paper on romance.”
“Didn’t say you were, just said there’s a lot to unpack regarding this exact discussion on why romance fiction gets the short end of the stick when it comes to scholarly discourse.”
“I said, that is not why I don’t want to pick this as the genre of focus. I just think romance is lame in general. I don’t care for it at all. How can I write a full paper on something I have no interest in?”
Taehyun smirks. “Like I said, a lot to unpack. Your anti-romantic perspective is one of the angles we can dive into. You don’t need to like a topic to engage in academic discussions on it. Well, unless you want to do something thematic like everyone else is doing.”
Taehyun isn’t wrong. Yeonjun thinks romance is far too fluffy for him to do a research paper on, but the way he just used the word ‘anti-romantic’ makes it sound like a slur, and he grows a little defensive.
“I’m not an anti-romantic. I just think it’s too frivolous.”
“Oh, trust me, I know better, and it’s also why I picked this topic. Especially since, like you, most of our coursemates definitely won’t think in that direction either.”
Frowning, Yeonjun processes his words. From a competitive standpoint, it makes sense, but the teasing lilt to Taehyun’s words also doesn’t sit right with him.
“What do you mean you know better?”
Taehyun leans forward, and despite them being seated on opposite ends, Yeonjun still finds himself frozen when he finds the other man’s face barely a ruler’s length away from his. Striving to maintain his composure, he refuses to crack. Neither does he allow himself to back away even as Taehyun’s smile morphs into a smug grin.
“I’m saying that I know you’re an anti-romantic.”
“How the hell would you know anything about me?!”
Taehyun tilts his head, his eyes wide with faux innocence, and a dangerous thought flits across Yeonjun’s mind ever so briefly. He’d rather die than acknowledge it, though.
“What? Stop staring.”
“I know it because I heard you don’t date.”
“What?”
Yeonjun feels his cheeks run aflame once again, and he realizes with deep embarrassment that he also sounds like a tape recorder, repeating the same words in his flustered state.
“How would you know something like that about me?” He’s fully aware that Taehyun’s teasing him to elicit some sort of reaction, but it’s even more humiliating that he’s letting himself grow outwardly defensive.
If it were any more possible, Taehyun inches even closer, half his torso nearly stretched across the surface of the table.
“Because I asked Beomgyu if you were single.”
Yeonjun’s not usually the kind to get flustered. He’s focused – sometimes to a fault – and never cares about anything else frivolous, but he hates how he feels himself malfunctioning.
“Stop messing around,” he grits eventually, and he’s thankful his voice comes out steady enough for Taehyun to back away, though the irritating smirk is still plastered on his irritating face.
“Okay, pretty. Whatever you say.”
Yeonjun is five seconds from crashing out, and he supposes his entire face must be red with anger like some sort of cartoon character, but he holds back as best as he can, inhaling deeply.
“You are really fucking annoying.”
Shrugging, Taehyun doesn’t seem too bothered by the harsh response.
“Only for you, babe. I’m serious about the proposed research question though.”
Muttering yet another curse under his breath, much to Taehyun’s visible amusement, Yeonjun picks up the folder again after directing another glare at his partner.
It takes a bit of effort for Yeonjun to assess the proposal and supplementary information objectively, while ignoring his blazing hatred for Kang Taehyun and the topic of romance, but eventually, he has to reluctantly admit that he sees the guy’s points.
Romance did indeed get the short end of the stick when it came to genre-typing in scholarly contexts, and Yeonjun had to acknowledge Taehyun’s good work in gathering the background information for each of his carefully crafted research questions.
He surveys the document for a while longer just so he doesn’t seem too easily swayed before letting out his loudest sigh.
“These research questions, they…” he rolls his eyes when Taehyun props his chin with his hand, making an exaggerated show of blinking hopefully. “I can see where you’re coming from.”
“The anti-romantic perspective part? Or the practical part about doing something the other kids won’t be doing?” It’s as if this man exists to piss him off.
“The practical part, you annoying fuck.”
“Aww, is our Yeonjunie actually someone with a romantic bone?”
“Fuck off, I swear, before I change my mind.”
Taehyun puts his hands up in surrender, mirth still evident all over his features.
“I’ll take these back and refine the three best research questions we can consider working on.”
“Everything you say, princess.”
Taehyun 100% deserves the kick Yeonjun very magnanimously bestows him under the table. Except the man catches him by the cuff of his jeans, much to his surprise.
“Ooh, we’re moving to footsie base now?”
This time, Yeonjun kicks his chair so hard, he nearly crashes into the door.
-
Choi Yeonjun
I refined three of your ideas with more info
Emailed them to you
We should make a decision by our next meeting tmr
Sent 3.11am
Kang Taehyun
Not even a ‘hi’ from you babe?
Received 3.12am
The speed at which the response comes in surprises Yeonjun, and he wonders if the other man is at yet another party. He’d spotted the other man at a number of those back when he was a freshman. He’s pretty much gone cold turkey now, though, especially with the sheer amount of pressure he puts on himself to maintain his flawless GPA.
Choi Yeonjun
Hi
Get it done, thanks
Sent 3.13am
Kang Taehyun
Sweet
Received 3.13am
Somehow, Yeonjun can hear and picture Taehyun saying that, and he rolls his eyes as if the other man can see it.
Choi Yeonjun
You sound like a 50 yo creep
How drunk are you
Sent 3.14am
Kang Taehyun
Drunk? No
But drunk in love with you? Always
Received 3.16am
Choi Yeonjun
You’re disgusting
Stop partying so late
Go sleep
Sent 3.17am
Kang Taehyun
You go to sleep first babe
I wish I were partying
Kinda hard having a normal sleep schedule needing to catch up with work during varsity games haha
Received 3.18am
He supposes that's kinda true, and he feels a little bad for thinking Taehyun was up late playing around. The man does seem pretty dedicated to his extracurriculars.
Meanwhile, Yeonjun occasionally pops by the dance club and holds a few lessons here and there, but with nothing competitive in his commitment to the club. Focusing on his studies was always key to him, and nothing could snap him out of that.
Choi Yeonjun
You should rethink your commitment then
It's your dumb ass who wants to do everything possible
Sent 3.19am
Kang Taehyun
Aww are you worried about me?
Received 3.20am
Yeonjun makes a gagging noise to nobody in particular, given how he lives alone in his dorm.
Choi Yeonjun
I just don't want you dying before the project's over
Sent 3.22am
Kang Taehyun
Well I am worried about you so you should sleep soon
Unless you want to fall asleep against my shoulder during class tomorrow
I wouldn’t mind that tho
Received 3.24am
The last message goes ignored, and Yeonjun heads to bed, totally not because of Taehyun’s annoying words.
-
Unlike what Taehyun so sagely prophesied, Yeonjun doesn’t fall asleep against his shoulder after a late night. But he does arrive at their shared literature lecture to the view of his project partner in Beomgyu’s usual seat.
He’s about to scan the theatre for his demon of a best friend, though he’s interrupted when Taehyun turns around to make a big show of waving at him.
It’s as if he’s set on embarrassing Yeonjun, and he has no choice but to make his way over to slap his hand down.
“Hey Yeonjunnie,” Taehyun greets with a bright smile, totally unfazed by Yeonjun’s scowl.
“What are you doing here? Where’s Beomgyu?”
“Oh, I didn’t know there were assigned seats.” He blinks exaggeratedly before laughing when Yeonjun narrows his eyes.
“I’m just messing around. I thought we should sit together because today’s lecture is about genre-typing in modern literature. It could help with our project. I asked Beomgyu if I could sit on your other side, and he thought we should swap instead so we could have our privacy to discuss anything, and Kai wouldn’t be alone.”
Yeonjun isn’t surprised, and he clicks his tongue when he looks across the lecture theatre to find Beomgyu clearly trying to chat up a storm with Kai. His entire body language screams desperation, and Yeonjun snorts as he watches his friend laugh extra loudly, just to try and inch his way closer to Kai with each boisterous heave of his chest.
“It’s nice of you not to tear through his lies,” he comments, settling down in his seat and starting up his laptop so he can run through the lecture readings one more time before it begins.
“What can I say? Maybe I, too, wanted to have our private time alone.”
“One more attempt at bad flirting and I’m moving elsewhere.”
He doesn’t look up from his laptop screen, though he hears Taehyun huff amusedly before setting up his own notes.
“Hey, by the way…”
Yeonjun looks up, about to fix Taehyun his meanest glare, only to be interrupted when the man knocks a beverage on the edge of his writing tablet.
“What?”
“Ah. I thought you’d like some coffee after your late night, so I asked Beomgyu what you usually drink. He said working at night is normal for you, and you’d appreciate hibiscus tea instead.”
Taehyun sounds chill as ever, and Yeonjun has a hard time figuring out if this is some sort of tactic to break through his admittedly spiny demeanor.
“Are you trying to bribe me to do your part of the project?” His voice is steely as ever, but that doesn’t stop him from accepting the drink and taking a sip from it. It’s his exact order from the cafe across campus, where he had many of his other classes, and he can’t help but wonder if Taehyun really took the time to travel all the way there just to get him this tea.
It’s free, he can’t say no to free stuff.
“Ah, about that. You should check your email too.” The grin on Taehyun’s face annoys Yeonjun all over again, but he opens a new tab to check his mail, instantly seeing a response from the man at the top of the list.
“I assumed from the shortlisting that you were okay with these three, so I took the liberty to decide on one and work out an outline and delegation of tasks based on that. We can discuss it further later.”
It wasn’t that Yeonjun assumed Taehyun was lazy. Okay, maybe that’s not too far off, because he’d believed the man to be someone who relied more on luck and cutting corners, so this still surprises him.
“Did you get any sleep at all?!”
Taehyun whistles, taking a sip of his coffee. “The Choi Yeonjun caring about little old me?”
“Like I said. I just don’t want you dying before the project ends.”
As always, Taehyun doesn’t dwell on his snappy reply. “I wrapped up shortly after you ghosted me, so I thought I’d match your energy and move the project along too.”
Now Yeonjun feels a little bad. He hadn’t meant to pressure Taehyun unnecessarily just because he worked better at night.
“You know we’re way ahead of the project, and we could decide on the research question during our meeting literally after this lecture, right? Also, I really just work best at night.”
“Yup, and yup, Beomgyu told me that too.”
“You talk an awful lot to Beomgyu.” Yeonjun wants to slap his forehead because he’s spot on in predicting the way Taehyun raises an eyebrow.
“Are you jealous, princess?”
He focuses on his screen again. Taehyun’s full of shit as usual, and it’s only in his best interests that he stops entertaining him regarding things unrelated to the project.
“Not at all. Just wanted to warn you that he’s head over heels for your best friend, just in case you’re thinking of slipping into his pants or something. He’s loyal, unlike you.”
“You say a lot for someone who claims he isn’t jealous,” Taehyun teases instead, and Yeonjun has no idea his chest feels just a fraction tighter when the man doesn’t deny any of his accusations.
Thankfully, the lecturer finally makes his grand entrance, effectively shutting the other man up.
Except, within the first thirty minutes, Taehyun finds yet another way to piss him off again. Despite that, Yeonjun nearly laughs when he’s reminded of how the same man had warned him not to fall asleep on his shoulder the previous night, only for him to be the one nodding off as their professor drones on.
He catches himself before he can crack a smile, deciding to press his knuckle against the side of Taehyun’s head just as he’s about to collide into his shoulder. Taehyun jolts awake, blinking rapidly, and Yeonjun finds himself staring at the other man’s face for longer than necessary.
“Shit, sorry.”
Yeonjun snaps back into awareness. “Pay attention. You said this would be beneficial for our project.”
“Right right,” Taehyun mumbles softly, stretching slightly. This time, Yeonjun is conscious of the way his gaze lingers on the other man’s midriff, which is slightly revealed as he stretches and yawns with his jaws wide open.
“What the hell, are you Kirby?” he grumbles. “The professor’s gonna deduct our points if he starts believing you think you’re too good for his boring class.”
Taehyun turns to him, his expression playful. “Dean’s List permanent resident Choi Yeonjun thinks that his professor’s classes are boring?”
“I take my course content seriously. I don’t worship academics just because they have a PhD and are only masquerading as educators just so they can selfishly continue their research projects.”
“Sweet.”
Yeonjun shakes his head, turning his attention back to the screen.
To his credit, Taehyun tries his best to stay awake, though he’s only successful for the next thirty minutes or so.
Yeonjun doesn’t know why he doesn’t have the heart to wake the other man up when he finally slinks lower and lower into his seat, his eyes pressed shut. Instead, he pulls a cap out of his bag to pop it onto Taehyun’s stupid head to hide his stupid sleeping face from the professor.
He cringes when he processes what he’d just done.
All Kang Taehyun does is annoy him. He sincerely believes that.
-
Taehyun doesn’t say anything about the cap, mostly because once the lecture wraps up, Yeonjun snatches it away and uses it to slap his forehead lightly before hiding all evidence quickly.
He insists it was nothing more than a moment of weakness, simply because he felt bad for indirectly causing Taehyun to lose sleep. Not that he’s really at fault when a grown man made his own decision to do that.
Still, guilt continues to gnaw at him as they’re heading to the library to find a discussion room for their group meeting.
“So. I hope you absorbed enough information from that lecture for the both of us,” Taehyun breaks the silence first.
Huffing, Yeonjun distracts himself by sipping on the last of his tea.
“You just wasted your time for nothing.”
“Hey! I did the readings diligently and caught like… I dunno. The first hour?”
“He spent those sixty minutes repeating what the readings said.”
“Pretty sure he spent the next sixty minutes doing exactly that too,” Taehyun quips, and frankly, Yeonjun can’t argue with that. Their professor wasn’t exactly the best lecturer to exist.
They’re faced with yet another problem when they arrive at the library to find all the discussion rooms occupied.
Yeonjun groans, his irritation only growing when he finds Taehyun with his stupid sleepy face again. This time, he stretches even more exaggeratedly, his shirt completely riding up to expose his toned stomach, and Yeonjun’s brain short-circuits for a good three seconds.
“We can discuss the project in one of those tables outside or something. It’s noisy but better than nothing.”
Taehyun yawns again like a lazy cat, eliciting another eyeroll from Yeonjun.
“You’re so fucking annoying. Follow me.” Puzzled, but still unoffended by Yeonjun’s random cursing, Taehyun follows him dutifully with no questions.
Genuinely speaking, Yeonjun has no idea why he’s doing this. Maybe out of guilt and simply because he’s not totally an awful person. But the embarrassment and awkwardness only sink in when he finally swings the door to his dorm open.
Meanwhile, Taehyun’s left standing at the door in complete confusion.
“Skipping bases that quick?” he teases finally, though his eyes are still wide with a tinge of disbelief.
“I’ll kick you out if you don’t shut up. It’s only because we’re not gonna be productive if you’re dozing off every three seconds.”
“Oh. We’re not discussing the project here?”
Yeonjun folds his arms, mustering his most exasperated expression.
“You’re just gonna be a nuisance by zoning out and falling asleep. Take a proper nap for thirty minutes, and we’ll start today’s discussion after that. My dorm isn’t too far from your class at two anyway.”
He regrets elaborating too much about knowing Taehyun’s schedule that well, but before he can formulate some sort of retort to defend himself, his gaze falls on the other man, who has gone uncharacteristically quiet.
If anything, his eyes are somehow even wider and his ears are obviously tinted crimson.
Yeonjun suddenly realizes what he’s looking at right now.
Taehyun’s shy. And he frankly doesn’t know what to do with this information or how to even react.
“Time’s ticking,” he forces out eventually.
“Do I sleep in your bed or– I mean, I attended class outside in these clothes.”
“I’m changing the sheets tonight. Hurry up before I change my mind.” He hadn’t intended to do that, to be honest, but he guesses he has one new to-do to add to his list.
God, why is he acting so desperate right now?
“Oh. Okay. Thank you, sorry for the trouble.”
“I’m glad you know you’re always causing me trouble,” Yeonjun mutters, pretending to be busy setting up his laptop on his desk to continue his work.
He hears shuffling and rustling behind as Taehyun takes off his jacket, but he keeps his focus on his laptop, though the words end up swimming in his head uselessly.
It’s hard to explain how his stomach flips slightly when he turns around after a few minutes to the view of Taehyun wrapped under his sheets like some sort of burrito.
As he’d predicted, the man’s fast asleep within seconds, his exhausted features finally relaxing, giving him an even softer look than Yeonjun’s used to.
He forces himself to look away.
When his alarm goes off and Taehyun finally wakes up again, Yeonjun tries not to fixate too much on the fact that he’d gotten nothing done in those 30 minutes at all.
-
Routine’s something that often gets Yeonjun good, even if it’s just a month of working with Taehyun on the stupid project. And he has no idea how he began to get used to seeing the man only in academic settings.
To be fair, they’d only gotten acquainted because of the project, and consequently, most of their encounters had taken place in some sort of academic setting.
So Yeonjun doesn’t understand why Taehyun keeps flitting across his mind when he’s at someone’s house party.
It’s been a long time since he’s turned up to any of these, but Beomgyu had been a real pain in the ass, forcing him to attend the party with him, and he’d reluctantly agreed after hours of pestering and ridiculous accusations of him choosing ‘studs over buds’, whatever the fuck that means.
Worst of all, the man had ditched him the moment they arrived, weaving through the crowd after mumbling something about getting them drinks. It’s a lie, he’s sure.
Despite it having been a while since he attended a party, Yeonjun isn’t exactly uncomfortable in social settings, so he chats briefly with a few still-sober people who recognize him before he decides to actually get a drink himself instead of waiting for Beomgyu, who might never return.
Being alone also means his mind wanders petulantly to the man who had somehow begun to occupy a significant amount of his time. Yeonjun doesn't think they've gotten friendlier per se, or rather, he's still as spiny towards Taehyun, but they've certainly been working much more closely together and he has to admit that the other man isn’t as bad as he’d believed him to be.
It's simply part of Yeonjun's cynical nature, but he refuses to get too comfortable with Taehyun, knowing he's naturally flirty and consequently most probably unserious when it comes to personal relationships.
Despite that, it doesn’t stop Yeonjun’s mind from wandering. From wondering whether he would see Taehyun here. Or rather, if he wants to see Taehyun here.
Perhaps, he would find the man with someone else. If he thinks back hard enough to the parties he’d attended in the past and the glimpses of Taehyun he caught on social media, Yeonjun’s almost certain he’s never seen him alone.
He’s not sure he’s ready to address how he’d feel about that.
Someone bumps into him just as he’s about to grab a can of beer, interrupting his messy thoughts.
“Oh Yeonjun! Hi!”
Turning, he finds Kai beaming at him enthusiastically, his cheeks and ears flushed. Clearly, he’s a little intoxicated, and he wonders if Beomgyu had been rushing off to find him earlier.
“Hey.”
“Are you looking for Tyunnie?” He tilts his head while blinking curiously, and Yeonjun kinda has an idea why Beomgyu’s so smitten with Kai. He’s always had a thing for the sweet ones.
“Uhm, why would I be looking for him?”
Kai giggles, and Yeonjun doesn’t know what to make of it, especially when he considers the fact that that man’s also Taehyun’s closest friend.
“You guys are always together, silly! I thought I got replaced.” He pouts for extra measure.
Yeonjun doesn’t appreciate being called silly, but Kai’s drunk and pouting, so he avoids cussing at him, lest Beomgyu gets his ass after.
“Well, it’s just for the project. You didn’t get replaced,” he assures half-heartedly.
Kai stares at him blankly for an uncomfortable moment, suddenly seeming more sober.
“Oh, okay. Well uh, I saw him in the kitchen earlier, if you need him.”
“I don’t,” Yeonjun mutters, changing his mind to grab a bottle of soju and taking a straight gulp. It scorches its way down his throat, but that’s perhaps what he needs right now.
Meanwhile, Kai doesn’t leave, continuing to shift awkwardly on his feet.
Now Yeonjun feels a little bad for being his usual snappy self to someone so innocent in all of this.
“Beomgyu’s also been looking for you. I’m not sure where he is now, but you should text him. He spent three hours dressing up to look good before seeing you.”
“Ah, has he? O-Okay.” He rubs his nape, excusing himself soon after, and Yeonjun wants to slap his forehead. Had reading all those research papers and romantic literature texts for the stupid project influenced him somehow? Why did he just play cupid for Beomgyu?
Shaking his head, he takes another swig of his soju, deciding to head out. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to just say hi to Taehyun. Courtesy right?
Except courtesy comes back to bite him right in the ass when he actually heads to the kitchen, trying not to make it obvious that he’s looking for someone.
He regrets it all the moment he actually spots Taehyun.
Alcohol burns in his stomach as it churns.
Right, he’d expected this, hadn’t he? Taehyun’s never alone. Especially not at a party like that.
He just has no idea why the view of Taehyun seated on the counter while in conversation with another man bothers him so much. Yeonjun recognizes the man to be Soobin from one of his past classes, but his identity is hardly of concern when all his attention is focused on how Taehyun’s fingers are playing with the chain hanging from Soobin’s jeans.
They’re in some sort of animated conversation, he supposes, and Soobin’s busy chattering away with jest. It’s not as if they’re making out or engaging in some sort of sickening PDA, yet Yeonjun’s neck still prickles when he processes the way Taehyun smiles in rapt interest, swinging his legs lightly as their knees collide every so often.
It’s intimate. Far too intimate and soft, Yeonjun finds himself trying to decipher what exactly this bitter twist of his guts really means.
Something sour crawls its way up his gullet, stinging the back of his tongue. It leaves him frozen for a good minute – plenty of time for Taehyun to eventually spot him with a raised brow.
“Yeonjunie?” He tilts his head with a smile.
With a smile and without a care.
What else did Yeonjun really expect?
Meanwhile, Soobin turns to look at him too, his eyes widened as if he’s stunned that Yeonjun would even show up to a party.
Or well, it’s mostly a wild guess, since they’re not exactly acquainted enough for them to know each other well, but Yeonjun’s irritated enough for a good number of reasons, and he's not too keen to think any harder.
It’s a bit strange for him to do so, but he can’t quite formulate anything to say, so he merely nods, taking yet another swig of his soju before setting it down on the table nearest to him.
Unwise choice, his heart is beginning to pound hard in his ribcage, and he thinks it’s no longer because of the alcohol.
“Uhm…” Soobin looks between them before turning back to Taehyun. “I’ll leave you two to it…?”
They exchange some sort of silent conversation before Taehyun nods with a smile.
The scene irks him even more.
He stays put, though, barely acknowledging Soobin when he passes by and ducks his head slightly in a half-bow.
His gaze is trained on Taehyun, who merely hops off the counter to walk over to him.
Yeonjun hates how he’s feeling a whole bunch of weird things about Taehyun, hates how his chest feels tighter the closer he gets, hates how his gaze ends up raking the other man’s body beyond his control.
Hates how good Taehyun looks dressed in nothing more than a crop top and low-waisted jeans with a soft cream cardigan draped over his form.
“Like the view?” he teases, and Yeonjun isn’t sure whether it’s the alcohol thrumming in his veins, or the confusing feelings pried out of him when he saw Taehyun and Soobin looking so oddly sweet. But it still leaves him heady enough to lose his rationality.
“Are you and Soobin now a thing?”
Taehyun seems surprised by the question, and he blinks slowly, his lips curling.
“Are you jealous, princess?”
Yeonjun can’t tear his eyes off the man’s lips, but he can’t quite find an answer to his question either. Does it matter? Why would Taehyun’s relationships bother him?
His silence seems to unnerve Taehyun, who straightens up ever so slightly.
“We’re not. Soobin’s just my childhood friend, if that’s what you’re curious about.”
Everything about Taehyun leaves him heady enough to lose all his rationality.
One second, his gaze is trained on the shape of the other man’s lips as he says something, and the next, Yeonjun’s fingers have found the other man’s crop top, fisting the fabric as he pulls.
And Taehyun’s painfully pliant, astonishment gracing his pretty features ever so briefly as he’s tugged close.
Close enough for Yeonjun to feel the other man’s breath ghost his lips. Close enough for him to simply be rendered breathless.
“How drunk are you, Yeonjun?”
“Sober enough. I just arrived.”
Taehyun eyes the forgotten soju bottle, still more than half full.
Annoyance bubbles in Yeonjun’s chest with the other man’s attention diverted, and he lets his impulse overtake him as he loops his other hand around Taehyun’s waist, yanking him till their bodies are flush against each other.
The gasp pried from the man’s lips is divine, pretty, pretty, pretty.
“Do you really want this?” Taehyun asks breathlessly, and Yeonjun takes a long moment to contemplate it, to really contemplate it with every sober brain cell in his head.
He’ll probably regret it tomorrow when his mind is clearer, but for now, the way Taehyun’s skin burns under his touch clouds all his rationality.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
-
In the time Yeonjun had gotten closer to Taehyun, he’d realized how easy the man was with him. Easy smiles, easy agreements, easy flirting, and even now, he’s completely pliant as he allows Yeonjun to pin him to the wall the moment his door is shut, just to lick into his mouth hungrily.
But Yeonjun’s parched, starving, and it’s almost as if Taehyun being so yielding is only fueling his hunger.
The hint of vodka at the tip of his tongue tips him off further as he reaches between them to palm Taehyun’s crotch, pleasantly flattered to find the man semi-hard.
“Ah– fuck,” he chokes, hands flying up to brace Yeonjun’s shoulders.
It’s almost as if their minute height difference is suddenly being magnified, and Yeonjun can feel his skin buzz just as the other man presses his forehead against his shoulder blade, nails digging crescents into his skin.
Everything’s urgent, rushed, and Yeonjun knows he’s running purely on unadulterated lust and adrenaline, floating higher each time he manages to pry a gasp from the other man’s lips as he presses hard against his clothed length.
“You’re so obedient, Taehyun.”
The man laughs breathily, though he doesn’t look up.
“Am I?”
“Yeah. You’re always so easy.”
“Is that a good thing?”
Probably, if the way Yeonjun’s pants are already tighter than ever just from touching Taehyun is anything to go by.
“Yeah, fuck–” He lets go of the other man’s crotch to grind against him directly instead, eliciting louder groans from both of them.
“T-Then I guess I’m finally doing something right, huh?”
Yeonjun tries not to read too much into those words, ripping Taehyun’s cardigan off, only to lift him by his waist to set him down on the mattress.
And the view of Taehyun sprawled on his mattress with his cheeks flushed, lips ruddy, and midriff completely exposed has his head pounding even harder. He’s reminded of the way the same man had laid on this same bed – his bed – just a few weeks ago, rubbing his bleary eyes cutely when he finally woke up to continue their discussion.
“See? Easy.”
Taehyun laughs breezily.
“How do you want me?”
Yeonjun doesn’t even need to think any further, reaching out to pin the other man’s hands above his head.
“Like this. I’ll reward you if you stay still.”
Tilting his head, Taehyun eyes him with mirth, though he keeps his hands there even after Yeonjun draws away.
“I don’t even get to touch you? Shame.”
“I’d like to see you struggle.”
Taehyun groans, watching intently as Yeonjun slides his own pants and underwear off, before doing the bare minimum by unzipping the other man’s jeans and pulling his briefs just low enough to expose his pulsing length.
It must be uncomfortable, but the constricted position leaves Taehyun’s cock twitching, and Yeonjun feels smug with the reaction elicited just from controlling the other man.
“You’re just gonna use me like that, huh?”
There’s a layer of desperation beneath Taehyun’s words, as if he’s trying to push Yeonjun in a certain direction.
“Yeah, you’d like that, won’t you?”
“From my princess? Always.”
Yeonjun ignores the way his ears heat up from the possessive undertones lacing the sentence, reaching over to his nightstand to grab his lube and a condom instead.
“You’re insane, fuck. You're fucking insane.”
It fills Yeonjun with pride. Every ounce of desperation and neediness permeating each syllable fuels his need to put on a show as he rides his lubed fingers, thighs caging Taehyun’s legs while he grinds down sensually.
He throws his head back, moaning as he imagines impaling himself on Taehyun’s length, which has grown impossibly hard, flushed red at the tip as it pulses with each movement.
There’s a sick sense of satisfaction when he pries open his eyes to find the other man’s heated gaze on him, his lips parted silently, and cock hard and heavy against his navel, as if the mere view of Yeonjun has knocked the mouthiness out of him.
Most of all, his fingers are digging into his sheets as he keeps his hands in position.
Yeonjun wasn’t lying. He likes to see that man struggle.
“Don’t come yet,” he teases, taking his time to open himself up before he finally deems Taehyun strung up enough for him to crawl over and take his burning length in his hands just to roll a condom on.
“Fuck– Ah– still can’t touch you?”
Tip prodding at his hole, he can feel how hard Taehyun is, his length pulsing pathetically in his hand.
“Later. If you make me come first.”
Bold words, because he underestimates the stretch – underestimates the way all his senses are heightened and his sensitivity is dialled up to the max when Taehyun’s cock finally breaches his entrance, pushing its way through as he begins to spread his numb legs further.
His breath hitches, blood roaring through his ears as every muscle goes lax with the pressure between his legs.
A high-pitched moan is forced from his lips when he finally sinks down all the way, completely and utterly slutted out on Taehyun’s length.
“Oh god– fuck–” he pants, body tensing up as he struggles to adjust to the other man’s size.
“Touch me– please touch me, Taehyun,” he pants, and it would be a lot more embarrassing after all the big talk just minutes ago, were his limbs not completely liquid. “Sorry, I need–”
He has no idea if Taehyun can even decipher his blabbering, or if he even gets what he’s begging for, but he’s proven wrong when the man shoots up to brace him by the waist, pressing their chests flush against each other.
He’s hugging Yeonjun, rubbing his palms along his sides comfortingly while holding him in position.
The mocking Yeonjun expects never comes. Instead, Taehyun kisses up his neck tenderly, letting him slump against his body.
“Is this okay? Do you want to stop?”
Yeonjun shakes his head as best as he can.
“Just give me– fuck, just give me a moment. It’s been a while.” A jolt of pleasure zips up his spine as he shifts, tightening around Taehyun. But the man doesn’t falter, doesn’t buck his hips up on instinct, simply stays still as if he’s cautious not to overwhelm him.
“Take all the time you need, baby.”
The position is much too intimate, every comforting action even more dizzying, and Yeonjun feels embarrassed when his hands fly up to cling to Taehyun’s back instead, as he begins swivelling his hips experimentally to grind down on him slowly.
“God, you’re so tight, fuck,” he groans, and Yeonjun’s aware how he’s truly pulling out every ounce of self-control not to buck his hips up.
Perhaps it’s beyond the obedience, perhaps it’s also how tender Taehyun is towards him that leaves him burning, spurring him to plant his knees on the mattress to ride him in earnest.
Through it all, he doesn’t make any effort to push Taehyun down, for them to separate.
Instead, he lifts himself off to plunge back down on Taehyun’s length while bracing him.
“Ah– Taehyun,” he whines, high at the back of his throat as he speeds up, feeling the tightly wound knot at the pit of his stomach grow impossibly taut.
“Taehyun, Taehyun– Ah!”
It’s shameful how he’s whining Taehyun’s name like a bitch in heat, shameful how each jolt of pleasure is leaving his head cloudy, shameful how the other man’s groans are only driving him closer to the edge.
Taehyun’s palms travel to his ass, kneading the flesh there and guiding his movement. Every touch is electric, every ounce of friction granted as he spears himself open leaves his head filling with cotton.
But nothing is more shameful than the way he spills white between their bodies the moment Taehyun grabs a fistful of his hair to yank his head up just to kiss him hard.
Blood roars incessantly in his ears, the strong wave of his orgasm crashing into him and leaving every muscle weak. Most of all, the intimacy drives him crazy.
He’s vaguely aware of Taehyun bracing his waist as they collapse backwards, before he bucks his hips up a few more times, groaning when Yeonjun clenches down with every last ounce of his energy.
Through his hazy thoughts, a fucked up part of Yeonjun wishes he could feel the other man fill him up without the condom in place. Wishes he could let Taehyun mark him inside out till he remembered it all.
But he’s distracted by the way Taehyun continues to kiss him languidly till Yeonjun taps out, sliding away to bury his face in the crook of the other man’s neck as he catches his breath.
The air between them is still, only syncopated by their soft pants, and in this silence, everything that’d just happened sinks in, post-orgasm clarity creeping into Yeonjun’s head ever so insidiously.
He has no idea what this means to Taehyun. Even less idea what this means to him.
Was this always meant to be casual? Does Taehyun even feel anything else for him apart from lust? With his flirty and easy personality, was this common for him? Or was this simply something amusing to him – fucking the one person with the prickliest personality.
Yeonjun can feel it. Can feel the onset of a heartache begin to fester.
He pries himself off awkwardly, mind clogged up with his incessant thoughts.
“Oh, sorry,” Taehyun mumbles, letting Yeonjun move away before getting up to remove his soiled condom.
“Yeonjun, do y–”
“This was a one-time thing,” Yeonjun says suddenly, and Taehyun purses his lips, going quiet.
“It was a rash gamble, but I hope it won’t affect our project.”
Taehyun looks at him, his expression unreadable. It takes a long beat before he finally smiles.
“Anything you say, princess.”
He tries not to think too much about how uncharacteristically quiet Taehyun gets as he cleans himself up before leaving, despite the late hour.
Tries not to regret failing to ask him to at least stay over.
-
Kang Taehyun's infuriating. Yeonjun's already established that since the day he developed an acute awareness of that man's existence.
This time, he's infuriating in the way he somehow refuses to leave Yeonjun's mind. No matter how Yeonjun tries to pretend as if they hadn't fucked that night, as if they hadn't been painfully intimate, as if he hadn't cut Taehyun off when he tried to say something about the situation.
As if he hadn't liked the way Taehyun held him that night.
He has no idea what went through his head in hindsight. Doesn't even understand why he got so irrationally jealous seeing Taehyun with Soobin, before deciding he had to have Taehyun for the night because he simply couldn't fathom the thought of him leaving with anyone else.
Taehyun grows noticeably withdrawn, as if there's some sort of awkward wedge between them now. It's slight, barely noticeable by anyone from the outside, especially since they’re meeting and exchanging ideas per usual as they work towards completing their project. But for Yeonjun, who's painfully used to the other man's constant teasing and flirting, it's obvious as day.
Disconcertingly so.
But he justifies his actions to himself anyway. He hadn't done anything wrong. With how he remembers Taehyun to be, Yeonjun has to protect himself, especially with the high possibility that the man probably doesn’t want to dwell any further on something as trivial as a one-night stand.
He just doesn’t understand if Taehyun being withdrawn is a result of him wanting more, or him wanting to draw away now that he’s gotten his share of fun.
Taehyun’s annoying, but Yeonjun’s probably the fool for letting him occupy his mind so much, his focus on his academics is broken for once.
It only sinks in when he nearly forgets about his term test. As if the world is playing some sort of cosmic joke on him – a punishment maybe – it also happens to be a class he shares with Taehyun, and he feels shame flood his being when he arrives at the lecture nearly fifteen minutes late, shamefully begging the TA to let him take the test on a shorter time limit.
The test isn’t difficult, but doubts begin to creep into his head as he sits there, his mind wandering, hesitating, culminating in a heavy weight on his shoulders when he finally submits the paper with the dawning realization that he’s lost the focus he’d fought so hard for.
Beomgyu attempts to approach him once the lecture finally wraps up, though he dodges him to speedwalk out of the lecture theatre.
He isn’t sure whether he manages to shake his friend off, and he wants to scream and tear his hair out when someone grabs his arm the moment he turns into a quiet corner outside the library.
But when he spins around, it’s someone completely unexpected who greets him.
Someone he doesn’t think he even wants to see.
“Hey.” Taehyun is panting a little, and Yeonjun finally acknowledges the tension that had been bubbling between them.
“Are you okay?”
Yeonjun wants to actually scream, wants to blame Taehyun, wants to yell at him for fucking up his impeccable academic record, but all his ridiculous thoughts dissipate when he notices his messy hair and heaving chest.
Most of all, it’s how the other man is gazing at him with unbridled concern that has his frustration momentarily dissipating.
It was never Taehyun’s fault, wasn’t it?
“What?”
Taehyun lets go of his arm, and Yeonjun tries to ignore the emptiness in his chest when he draws away, setting a respectable distance between them.
“Sorry, you just looked really upset after the test, and I…” He scratches his nape, trailing off as he tries to read Yeonjun’s expression.
“I messed up and forgot about the test,” he finds himself replying, the words falling from his lips as if his ego had simply crumbled with how affected he is.
“Happens to the best of us.”
“And you are the best of us,” Taehyun adds with a smile that’s probably meant to break the tension and offer Yeonjun some comfort.
He just can’t understand why it suddenly feels easier to breathe.
“You don’t have any classes left today, right?”
It shouldn’t be this way. Taehyun shouldn’t have this effect on him, but Yeonjun finds himself nodding before he can stop himself.
“Spare me two hours of your time?” The hope dancing in the other man’s irises is unmistakable, and given how confused Yeonjun is about what he feels for the man, he really shouldn’t be entertaining him beyond the project. But he’s tired. Exhausted. And perhaps, that’s what compels him to follow Taehyun as he leads the way to the other side of campus.
It takes a while for him to realize they’re headed off campus when they approach a block of rental apartments.
“I share the apartment with Kai, but he has a full day of classes today, so don’t worry about it.”
Yeonjun hesitates for a moment before taking off his shoes and following him in. He isn’t sure if Taehyun’s idea of comforting him might be physical, or if he thinks Yeonjun would want to vent through sex.
Perhaps, that’d be okay. Perhaps that way, Yeonjun can finally wrap his head around all these confusing feelings by insisting that it’s simply physical.
But Taehyun gestures towards their small kitchen island, and Yeonjun settles down awkwardly, unsure what he has in mind, till the man rolls up his sleeves and takes out a pot and three packets of ramen. It’s just a tad bewildering when he grabs some chilli peppers from the fridge, chopping them up with fluid ease.
“Apparently, I read somewhere that spicy food can help when you're sad. Something about triggering the release of endorphins and stuff. It's not something for sure, but we can put it to the test.” He turns around, offering Yeonjun a reassuring smile.
Taehyun’s evidently a good cook, even though it’s just instant ramen, and Yeonjun feels a little spoiled when he finds his bowl of ramen fully embellished with a golden egg and topped with mozzarella cheese. Most of all, it looks amazing, despite how effortless the man made it seem.
“How did you know I…”
“How did I know you liked ramen? I would lie and say that at least 99% of the population’s comfort food has to be ramen, but I did actually guess it from the extensive amounts of ramen in your dorm.”
“You even noted down the exact brand?” Yeonjun comments, mostly as a joke, though he’s slightly thrown off when Taehyun only smiles.
They focus on slurping their noodles, and Yeonjun has to confess that this might be the best instant ramen he’s ever had. He doesn’t have to put it into words, though. The way he wipes his bowl clean down to the last drop of soup tells Taehyun all he needs to know.
Yeonjun isn’t usually one for words, so he offers to do the dishes to express his gratitude. Meanwhile, he’s hyperaware of the other man’s presence in the small kitchen as he flits about, tinkering with some bowls. He gets his answer when he spins around eventually, finding Taehyun having prepared dessert in the form of perfectly scooped spheres of ice cream.
“Ice cream?” His wide eyes and gentle smile are simply disarming. “If you can stay for a while more, we can watch some movies and have ice cream.”
“No pressure, if not.”
The sparkle in his eyes is so hard to resist, and Yeonjun’s far too gone to fight it.
“Did you peep in my fridge to find mint chocolate ice cream there too?”
Taehyun puts his hands up. “It’s a terrible flavor, but who am I to judge if it makes you happy?”
If it makes you happy.
Huffing, Yeonjun snatches the bowl away with an eyeroll. His reaction seems to ease the underlying worry that had been marring Taehyun’s features since he caught him after the test earlier.
They end up binge-watching every instalment of the Kungfu Panda series on Taehyun’s laptop in his bed, and by the third movie, Yeonjun’s mind has drifted. Or rather, his gaze has traveled to the man settled beside him, who has dozed off.
He’s pretty, impossibly pretty, and Yeonjun finds his breath hitching when his eyes travel to the other man’s lips. A bout of self-loathing rises in his chest all over again.
Yet again, he’s allowed himself to Taehyun mess up his rhythm.
Yet again, he let Taehyun get closer to him, knowing the man probably only sees him as something interesting for now. Some sort of challenge, maybe.
Yeonjun knows his type. Knows that someone as unserious as Taehyun would discard him once he’s done with the fun.
His thoughts are in disarray, beyond rational thought, and he feels sick to the core.
Overwhelmed, Yeonjun shuts the laptop down quietly, exiting his apartment without leaving any message behind.
He doesn’t know what to think, what to feel, and he’s starting to realize that this always happens when he’s around Taehyun.
Only around Taehyun.
-
Yeonjun flits through the next two days numbly, unsure how he should face Taehyun again during their next shared lecture and subsequent weekly meeting. On the day of, he settles down next to Beomgyu, focusing on running through his notes again, and not bothering to scan the lecture theatre for his project partner.
Right, that’s all he is – his project partner. And once they’re done with the paper in a couple of weeks, they’d no longer have any reason to be around each other. Yeonjun would have no reason to be agonizing over nothing again.
“Yo. You good? You didn’t reply to my texts.”
He wonders if Taehyun told Kai everything that had transpired between them.
“Yeah, just needed some time to myself.”
Beomgyu nods, about to say something else, though Yeonjun’s thankfully saved by the lecturer’s entrance.
There and then, Yeonjun decides that he’s done with all these mental gymnastics regarding Taehyun. His academics had always been at the forefront of his priorities, and he would be damned if he let anyone distract him from it again, especially when he only stands to get his heart broken at this rate.
He’ll focus on his lecture, head to the discussion room he’d managed to book in advance, and they’ll have their project discussion as normal. After all, the project is coming to a close, and once they’re done putting their parts together, they’ll no longer have any reason to be around each other.
And perhaps, Yeonjun will no longer have any reason to be confused about his feelings for the other man.
Except, his plan is thwarted from the get-go, right after the lecture ends and he’s just sent a text to Taehyun about the meeting location for their discussion. Because he glances to his left and finds Beomgyu with a tight-lipped grin on his face, as if he’s itching with the dying need to say something.
“Okay, spit it out. I have thirty minutes before my project meeting. We’ll walk and talk.”
Beomgyu lets out a yip, and for once, Yeonjun feels his tension melting ever so briefly as he huffs out a laugh, standing up to head out with his best friend hot on his trail.
“Soooo first of all, thank you.”
Yeonjun rolls his eyes. He has a vague idea what all of this is about.
“For?”
“Well… that night at the party. For asking Kai to look for me.”
Yeonjun hums, trying to veer his mind away from thinking about Taehyun and how he’d single-handedly changed the trajectory of their relationship that same night.
“It was nothing.”
“No, because well… he’s a bit… dense. And he had apparently been running away from me because he thought I wasn’t interested in him that way.”
“Wow, given how desperate you are 24/7, he must be really dense,” he mocks, earning himself a shove as Beomgyu shoulders him.
“Hey! Don’t be mean to my hubby!”
“I’m insulting you, not him.”
“Hmph. Yeah anyways, after he heard it from you, I guess it gave him the courage to look for me. So he did, and god Yeonjun, he was so cute. So shy, kicking his feet and all blushy after just one soju shot.”
“Spare me the details.”
Beomgyu ignores him, still starry-eyed, and Yeonjun shakes his head with a sigh. “But he didn’t say anything, just asked me if I wanted to go back to his apartment with him to watch the stars. He was so silly! He didn’t even know their rooftop was locked and it’s nearly summer too, we were sweating by the time we reached! But we ended up getting supper at the convenience store, and he bought me a pack of heart-shaped gummies to confess to me.”
It takes him by surprise. He’d expected Beomgyu to be the one to confess first, given how shy and uncertain Kai seemed.
“He beat me to it,” Beomgyu says dreamily. “I wanted to tell you, but you didn’t reply to your texts for nearly two weeks.”
Yeonjun swallows uneasily, quickly turning into the discussion room and propping the door open so Taehyun can spot him more easily later.
“Yeah, I got busy. Sorry,” He sits down, unpacking his laptop again.
Every thought leads back to Taehyun. Every recollection and every emotion from the past few weeks. It’s all Taehyun. And Yeonjun begins to feel increasingly frustrated the more he thinks back about the night he crossed the line and their whole exchange just two days ago.
“Busy with your blooming love life?” Beomgyu laughs, and the teasing lilt to his words seems to tip Yeonjun off as the cacophonous mess of confusing thoughts suddenly screeches to a halt.
He wants to throw up just trying to process it all.
“What love life?” His tone is hard, so hard and sharp, the impish grin on Beomgyu’s face falls comically.
“Oh uhm. You and Taehyun? Sorry, I assumed.”
Assumed. Yeonjun’s head swims. He’d expected Beomgyu to brush it off as a joke, but right now, things were a lot less funny and a lot more agonizing.
“Assumed what? I hate that guy.” The word falls from his lips like acid – acid that scorches its way out of his throat and out. Acid that scorches him.
“Whoa,” Beomgyu says slowly, as if he’s treading dangerous waters just by talking to him. “That’s a little extreme, isn’t it? I thought you guys repaired your relationship.”
Yeonjun scoffs, feeling irritated all over again. ‘Relationship’ is a far-fetched descriptor for whatever he has with Taehyun.
“Just because your angel is friends with Taehyun doesn’t mean he’s half as decent.”
The words are awful and nasty, he’s aware, but he’s desperate to reconcile his last thread of dignity, or so he thinks. He isn’t sure anymore. All he knows is that Beomgyu’s smitten with Kai, and he might have just kicked open the floodgates to his best friend’s wrath.
But the chiding he expected never comes; instead, he looks up to find Beomgyu staring at him, his expression unreadable as he squints at him. Scrutinizing, reading, prying him open.
Yeonjun isn’t in the mood to be psychoanalysed. He really isn't.
“I didn’t know that you actually disliked Taehyun that much. What is it that you hate so much about him?”
The question hits Yeonjun with lethal precision – sharp and straight to the point. Each word sinks in insidiously, and he feels doubled down upon and pressed to the corner.
“I’m asking because I’m genuinely confused. I know you had some sort of academic beef going with him, and maybe being paired with him for the project made you even more pissed off. But you’ve been spending more time willingly with him, even while you’re upset, so I thought you finally pulled your head out of your ass.”
“He’s annoying. Infuriating. He distracts me from my work and–” Yeonjun pauses, realizing how messed up he sounds, before swallowing and marching on anyway. “Isn’t serious about anything.”
Isn’t serious about me.
Was that true? His head pounds, but Beomgyu’s stare is relentless, and he feels extremely put on the spot, being forced to rethink what he feels about Kang Taehyun after every strange thing that had conspired between them, as if he hadn’t been the only thing on his mind for weeks now.
“What exactly are you referring to?”
“He’s never serious about anything, but somehow gets good grades, good co-curriculars, has a bunch of people flitting around him like flies while attending every party possible. And here he is just– Just being so infuriating. So. So distracting, messing around with me because it’s fun for him. Why would I have any respect for him after he’s been fucking around with me while pretending to be sincere and care about me?”
Voicing the words feels nauseating, and Yeonjun never imagined how stupid his thoughts could sound when vocalized. Or rather, how oddly wrong these words would feel when he reflects on the past weeks he'd spent with Taehyun.
But that was how he'd felt, wasn't it? If that was the truth he’d been trying to convince himself of for so long, why did he feel so awful telling them to someone?
Yet his nausea only multiplies tenfold when he finds Beomgyu regarding him with a hard stare.
“You think Taehyun isn’t serious about anything. You think he’s messing around with you, and that's why you, and I quote, hate him.”
It’s something delivered without an ounce of spite, simply as a matter of fact. A plain, crude one that pretty much summarized everything Yeonjun had just said about Kang Taehyun.
Kang Taehyun, who gets stellar grades while gracing every party and athletic competition without fail, Kang Taehyun, who was assigned to work with him and did so with that annoyingly cheeky attitude of his, Kang Taehyun, who always made fun of him and eventually slept with him, probably because he found his snappy exterior entertaining to break.
But also Kang Taehyun, who somehow figured out he’d been in a foul mood and invited him over and cooked for him just two days ago.
Yeonjun feels sick. He should’ve rejected Taehyun’s invitation. Should’ve drawn the line between them after already traversing it once in an irreversible mistake.
He really should have.
“Yeah,” he mumbles weakly, his thoughts now jumbled up with how confused he is about everything.
“That’s disappointing.”
Beomgyu’s words cut through the hazy mess in his head.
“What?”
“It’s not like I’m close to the guy, but after all the time you’ve spent with Taehyun, I thought you would know him better than that.”
It feels even worse that Beomgyu doesn’t even look upset. Maybe if he were, he could find a reason to retort with a list of examples of how Taehyun pissed him off. But all that greets him is disappointment – as if Beomgyu were disappointed after hearing all the nasty things he’d just said about Taehyun.
As if Beomgyu were disappointed in him.
Yeonjun’s starting to realize that he doesn’t even believe his own words any longer.
“Maybe I’m just an outsider in all of this. But I know for a fact that Taehyun puts in sincerity and effort to work for the things that matter to him.”
Yeonjun feels like a spoiled child, berated after acting like a complete asshole.
“And that includes the people he cares about.”
The words swim in his head, and sensing the shift in his demeanor, Beomgyu leaves after nagging at him. Caught up in their conversation, Yeonjun hardly even notices how it’s past their supposed meeting time, till several minutes of sitting in silence pass.
Checking his phone gives him no answers either, not when Taehyun hasn’t messaged him about being late or cancelling. It feels like yet another stinging slap in his face when he realizes how Taehyun had never been late or skipped out on any of their project work sessions.
Stings even more when he registers how Taehyun hadn’t contacted him after he left his apartment without saying a word just two days ago.
Added with the semi-fucked up exchange he’d just shared with Beomgyu, Taehyun’s uncharacteristic MIA felt even more disconcerting. It takes a great deal of groveling before he musters the courage to text him to ask if he’s coming at all.
Shame is beginning to set in the longer he reflects on Beomgyu’s words. Or rather, the longer he reflects on the rude words he’d uttered about Taehyun and all the awful opinions he convinced himself of, just so he could justify not letting the man in, and most dreadfully, the way he’d brushed Taehyun off the night they slept together, and left quietly without even thanking him just two days ago.
Maybe, he’d been the one trying futilely to push Taehyun out of his life, and when he failed to do so, he’d found temporary comfort in hiding behind the lie that Taehyun was simply messing with him to justify why he shouldn’t reciprocate his efforts.
Thinking about the unnecessary makes his head hurt, and Yeonjun’s thankfully distracted when his phone buzzes a few minutes later, though he’s not sure if the reply serves to improve his sullied mood at all.
Kang Taehyun
Sorry, something cropped up last minute
I’ll be quite busy for a while
Let’s work separately this week
Received 10.37am
Yeonjun tries not to think too much about how this is the first time Taehyun’s cancelled any of their project work sessions.
Tries not to overthink even more deeply about how it’s timed perfectly after their hangout session just two days ago, which Yeonjun is begrudgingly beginning to admit was a lot more intimate than any exchange they’d ever had.
-
Yeonjun’s never exactly been someone who mulled too hard over unimportant things like relationships and friendships – god, even the mention of it makes him realize that he can’t shelve what he has with Taehyun into a single box without tearing his hair out – but he supposes that his talk with Beomgyu had left him more than unsettled.
For some reason, Taehyun doesn’t contact him for the rest of the week. If anything, he begins to notice how he doesn’t spot Kai hanging around Beomgyu as he usually would either.
An insidious itch begins to bubble beneath his epidermis.
Has Taehyun grown bored with him? It wouldn’t be surprising, given how Yeonjun’s always been pushing him away and behaving like a complete asshole. Perhaps, with how snappy Yeonjun usually is, the man’s finally had enough of it and decided to move on. Or maybe, the one time they hung out with no excuse might have felt too intimate or normal for Taehyun’s liking.
Yeonjun doesn’t know what to feel. Doesn’t even know what he truly feels about the possibility of everything between them disappearing in the blink of an eye.
All he knows is that suddenly, it’s empty.
All he knows is that the thought of being shunned by Taehyun shouldn’t hurt him as much as it does.
-
“Where have you been?”
The words that fall from his lips place of a greeting surprise him, and he figures it might be the same for Taehyun, who turns around, his eyes widening.
Yeonjun has no idea why his heart is racing upon finally seeing Taehyun for the first time in over a week. At some point during the week, it had begun to feel as if the man had somehow been avoiding him. Or perhaps, because he’d always been the one to seek Yeonjun out, it was just as easy for him to disappear.
Yeonjun’s beginning to begrudgingly admit that the past week without Taehyun had left him feeling impossibly empty. It’s hard for him to go as far as to say he missed the man, but he fully expects to get teased for his unrestrained reaction.
“Ah I… got busy.”
The uncharacteristic response has Yeonjun itching all over.
Has him itching all over when he realizes that he cares. He cares what Taehyun thinks of him, and it’s beginning to fucking hurt when he considers the fact that the man’s done with him.
“Oh.”
“Let’s get to work,” Taehyun says, and Yeonjun grows even more anxious.
He tries not to let the thought of the other man being sick of him bother him. If there’s anything he wants to leave with, it’s his pride, and he could never be caught with any semblance of one-sided feelings for Kang Taehyun.
But the next ten minutes begin to stretch out impossibly as Taehyun compiles their separate parts in silence.
Yeonjun feels slightly desperate when the other man doesn’t spare him a glance. It’s insane, because just days ago, he would’ve scoffed at the thought of being bothered by Taehyun ignoring him.
“I’ve put it together and scanned through our combined parts. Everything’s as we discussed. You can take a look, and if it’s okay, we can submit it soon.”
The nonchalance kills him. It actually kills him so much, he loses his last thread of self-control and lets his admittedly huge ego smash into smithereens.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he blurts, his heart caught in his throat when Taehyun keeps his gaze trained on the laptop, blinking slowly.
The silence is torturous, and it takes a few seconds for everything to sink in.
For it to sink in that Taehyun is angry. His eyebrows are furrowed, and his features twist into something unrecognizable as he locks his jaw before straightening up slowly.
And when he finally looks at Yeonjun, his piercing gaze hurts. Hurts so bad it knocks every single thought out of his muddled head.
“What the hell is wrong with me?”
Yeonjun’s certain he’s never heard Taehyun’s voice this cold.
“All of–” Yeonjun gestures at nothing. “Whatever. Are you trying to say you’re done messing with me?”
It’s unexpected when Taehyun scoffs, looking at him in what Yeonjun assumes is disbelief.
“I’ve been messing with you?”
He’s suddenly overwhelmed by a lethal concoction of indignance and frustration.
“What else have you been doing? You messed with me because it was fun. Isn’t it obvious? You had so much fun fucking around with me, and suddenly you’re done. What, am I no longer a challenge for you, you’ve found a new target now?”
“Holy fucking shit, just shut up!” Taehyun snaps, and the harsh tone actually does shut Yeonjun right up, he flinches, his breath hitching.
The flash of anger in Taehyun’s irises is stark, and Yeonjun momentarily feels like he’s been doused in a bucket of ice water.
But the man presses his eyes shut instead, as if he’s trying to calm himself down, and Yeonjun feels terror seize him when he realizes that he’s truly never seen Taehyun angry. Even with his spiny attitude and frequent harsh words, Taehyun had never truly been angry at him, almost as if his patience with him was boundless.
Yeonjun fucked up. He doesn’t know why yet, but he did. Or maybe he’d already fucked up the moment he allowed himself to develop complicated feelings for Taehyun yet decided to be a piece of shit towards the same man.
But Taehyun’s fury is something else. It’s something else because he’d never once gotten mad, no matter how icy Yeonjun behaved toward him.
“Are you even hearing yourself?” Taehyun spits, though his voice is a lot more subdued now despite the hurt leaking from his cadence.
It was never supposed to be like that. Taehyun isn’t supposed to sound this broken because of whatever Yeonjun did.
“You’re the one who’s been messing with me,” – he laughs, short and sardonic as he runs his fingers through his hair – “well figures, I’m the one who’s been letting you do all that to me.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
Taehyun inhales sharply, clearly trying to sort his thoughts out.
“I heard it all. Everything you said to Beomgyu that day. You left the door open and I heard it all.”
Confusion floods Yeonjun’s veins till it sinks in.
“What day?” His voice comes out small, feeble even, given he’s rather sure what Taehyun’s referring to.
“About how much you hate me. How I’m someone who's unserious and just messing around with you for fun.”
A wave of nausea sweeps over Yeonjun.
“About how someone as insincere as me doesn't deserve your respect.”
“I was–” Yeonjun’s interrupted by Taehyun once again, and he shuts up, his stomach sinking infinitely.
“You know, I genuinely thought you were lovely, beneath your cold attitude, I could feel that you cared about me, even if you didn’t want to make it too obvious. Through all the effort I tried to put in, I have never asked anything of you in return. And yet, each time, you treat me like I'm some sort of parasite.”
“I thought you needed time to sort out your thoughts, and I was willing to give you all the time and space you needed. Even when you left without a word the other day, I blamed myself for coming on too strong.”
“I liked you, Choi Yeonjun. And I swore that I could see in your eyes that you knew it. That you wanted me too.”
He looks up finally, hurt flashing in his eyes, and Yeonjun wants to reach over, wants so badly to reach over and apologize, to explain himself. But he can hardly formulate a proper explanation or voice a single word when he finally comes to terms with how much he’s hurt the person who had been nothing but patient with him.
“But you know what, I guess I was wrong. Sorry for being such a nuisance to you. I'll be out of your hair.”
Taehyun shuts his laptop with a snap.
“I’ll email the paper over later. You can submit it after you’ve taken a final look.”
The silence after he leaves is deafening.
-
The days that follow are excruciating, and following Taehyun’s outburst, it’s as if he’s built a wall around him.
For a while, Yeonjun stays numb, trying to process everything – his mistakes, his regret, and most importantly, what he feels for Taehyun.
He’d been adamant in denying that he liked Taehyun, that he cared about him, that he wanted him, but he had no idea how he could convey to the man that he wasn’t wrong. That Taehyun had been right in saying that Yeonjun wanted him too.
Yeonjun wants him. Wants to apologize, wants to let him know that the things he said to Beomgyu were simply a result of his vehement denial of his feelings, wants to let Taehyun know that he regrets brushing him off and shutting him out without caring that it could hurt him.
Wants him.
Every time he agonizes over his mistakes, it comes back to one thing – he hurt Taehyun knowingly, thinking that if he just tried to pretend that Taehyun was as easygoing as he appeared to be, and he'd be okay.
Now, all he can do is let the semester come to a close and destroy any attempt at fixing things with the other man.
He submits the research paper eventually, mustering all his courage to text Taehyun to update him about it.
The message stays unread in his inbox.
His last frayed connection with Taehyun snaps.
-
“What the hell's going on with you?”
Yeonjun jolts awake in shock till he recognizes the voice reverberating in his dorm. He groans, trying to pull his blanket over his head to block out the unwelcome intruder.
Beomgyu flings the curtains open, the unwelcome glare of the sun instantly putting Yeonjun in an even worse mood.
“In case you didn't notice, I was sleeping.”
His voice comes out in an embarrassing croak, and Yeonjun finally admits it – he feels awful, probably looks and sounds awful too. It makes him feel even sicker than he already did.
Beomgyu doesn't quite care about the state he's in though, towering over him with his arms folded and disapproval written all over his face.
“You mean you've been rotting in bed for a whole week since our finals ended? You didn’t even read any of your texts. Do you know how worried I got? You're lucky I know your code and didn't have to break in.”
“I’m exhausted. I need a break.”
It belatedly occurs to Yeonjun that his friend might have heard about what happened from Kai, given how close they are. But Beomgyu sighs, and he realizes he might have fucked up even more than he thought.
“I know, and I’ve given it to you for a whole week. Even more, if you consider the whole time you were drowning yourself in work and isolating yourself during finals.”
He gets up reluctantly, his muscles sore from the long hours he spent trying to sleep everything off, and he’s instantly greeted by Beomgyu’s furrowed eyebrows.
“Did Kai tell you?” His voice is embarrassingly tiny.
“We fought about it, actually. We’ve been taking a break for a while.”
Guilt floods Yeonjun’s veins.
“I didn't know the details, so I tried to defend you, and he got even more upset.”
“I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t–”
“I know,” Beomgyu interjects quickly. “I know you didn’t want me to find out because it would put me in a difficult spot. But don’t feel too bad. We’re not… breaking up. Taehyun’s just been in a bad state, I heard. And he wants to spend time with him. We just can’t seem to ignore the elephant in the room, so he wanted to take a break from us till Taehyun’s better and well… Till I’ve had the chance to sort things out with you too.”
His heart aches. Aches so badly when he realizes how his inconsiderate actions have hurt three people who had been nothing but patient with him. Even more so when he realizes how he’d been wallowing in his own self-inflicted agony, he failed to realize how he’d caused harm to his own best friend.
“Also, I didn’t want to hear about what happened from anyone else. I wanted to hear it from you,” Beomgyu settles on the edge of his bed. “Because I’m your friend, and I’m here for you even if you’re being the dumbest prick in the world right now.”
“I like Taehyun,” he says finally, his voice weak and trembling. Only then does he realize he’d never properly acknowledged the thought, especially not to himself, and vocalizing it only makes it feel too raw, too real.
“Fuck, I like him. I really do.”
But Beomgyu doesn’t make light of it, even though he really should, so Yeonjun can feel a little less bad about it all.
“Took you long enough. So what went wrong?”
It’s easy to spill everything, especially when Yeonjun’s been replaying every moment, every mistake on loop, only hating himself more each time.
“That night at the party, I saw him with another guy. I guess… there had been some sort of tension between us. I got jealous seeing him with someone else, and when he told me they weren’t dating, I snapped and I slept with him.”
Beomgyu’s lips part soundlessly. The surprise is expected, given how Yeonjun had been so focused on his academics, one-night stands were far from something he’s used to.
“He was really sweet, took care of me really well, but after we were done, I… I got scared. Because that’s not something I usually do, but maybe it is for him. I don’t know. And I was terrified. I’m not good with feelings, and I wouldn’t know what to do if I turned out to be nothing more than a plaything for him.”
“So you decided to be in defense mode instead?”
Yeonjun’s head pounds when he recalls how Taehyun had tried to address it immediately, only to get cut off.
“I told him it’s just a one-time thing before he could say anything. God, Beomgyu. He wanted to talk about it. I was just too afraid to hear what he had to say. I thought if I nipped whatever we had by the bud, I’d be less likely to get hurt.”
Beomgyu looks at him sympathetically, climbing over to pull him into a hug. Boneless and simply exhausted, Yeonjun lets Beomgyu loop his arm around him.
“Oh, Jjunie, it’s okay. Fear is just a part of love, it always has been.”
“That’s not even all of it,” he huffs, loathing himself all over again. ‘I got so distracted after, I ended up screwing up the term test, but guess what? I used him again.”
“What do you mean?”
“He sensed that I was upset and took care of me. Brought me to his apartment and cooked for me. And I just…let him. He fell asleep while we were watching some silly movie, and I realized I was in too deep, so I panicked and left without leaving him any message.”
“You know what’s the most fucked up of it all? It’s that he didn’t even blame me for it. He thought he’d scared me away and tried to give me space.”
Beomgyu squeezes his shoulder.
“After we had that– that talk, I reflected on everything, and even though I still wasn’t sure, I was beginning to come to terms with the fact that I wanted him, and I had to stop villanizing him in my head just to protect myself. But I was too late. Of fucking course I was. Because guess what? He overheard everything I told you that day.”
Beomgyu draws a sharp breath beside him, and Yeonjun’s stomach sinks infinitely. “You mean everything you said to me in the library?”
“Yeah. Everything about how I felt he was insincere. How I hated him. God, Beomgyu, I said all those vile things I didn’t even mean, and he heard all of them. Fuck–”
Beomgyu’s silence only rehashes the extent of his fuck up.
“He avoided me for a while before we met again and he confronted me. I had no idea, yet I still had the guts to accuse him of discarding me, of being bored of me fuck I–”
He’s nearly hyperventilating, gasping for air as every word leaves his lips with humiliating shame.
“Jjunie, calm down,” Beomgyu whispers, holding him and rubbing soothing circles on his back. But it’s hard for him to calm down when he’s reminded of how he’d hurt Taehyun over and over, in the name of protecting himself. “Oh Jjunie, it’s okay, you were scared.”
“N-Not okay. I’m so selfish,” he gasps, and stewing in his regret and crying over spilt milk makes him feel tons more ashamed. “I hurt him, hurt all of you, even. You just got together with Kai too, and I had to ruin it all–”
Here he is, crying over spilt milk, when Taehyun had tried over and over to reach out to him.
It’s a joke, really, all of this, but that doesn’t stop him from finally breaking down, his heart throbbing with each cry leaving his lips.
Beomgyu seems completely startled by his dramatic reaction, and frankly speaking, just weeks ago, if anyone told Yeonjun he’d be crying his lungs out over Kang Taehyun, he would’ve laughed in their face and asked them to go to hell.
But perhaps he’d needed to voice all this out. Perhaps he needed someone to listen before he finally bent to the pressure accumulated from processing everything alone.
His ears won’t stop ringing as he curls up against his best friend till his lips are numb and his facial muscles are sore.
“Jjunie, it’s okay. You can still fix this.”
He wishes he could. Selfishly wishes it with all his heart.
-
It takes hours for him to calm down, and Beomgyu cuddles him silently through it all till he falls asleep out of exhaustion.
When he comes to again, Beomgyu’s still by his side, fiddling with his phone. By now, the sun is beginning to set. Yeonjun sneaks a glance at his phone, his guts twisting when he finds his friend staring at Kai’s Instagram page.
“I’m sorry,” he croaks, his voice even hoarser than before.
Beomgyu nearly flings his phone aside, his blush obvious even in the dim lighting. Yeonjun would find the situation a lot funnier were he not feeling more guilty than anything.
“Have you guys not been talking at all? Because of me?”
Sighing, Beomgyu leans back against the headboard. “Don’t worry, we’ve still been texting occasionally, just keeping a distance, and well, not meeting. This has been going on for a few weeks now, so I just miss seeing him, I guess.”
“I’m sorry. It’s all because I was a complete asshole. And I even ignored your attempts to reach out. Sorry for shutting you out.”
“What? I mean, you were a dick, but I get where some of those insecurities come from. It doesn’t make what you did okay, but that’s still something there. Kai and I… we’re just similar in this sense. We wouldn’t ditch our closest friends. I mean, I wasn’t sure what you did, but I had enough faith in you. At the very least, I wanted to hear your side of the story before I decided on anything. So you shouldn’t be sorry towards me. I made my own choice.”
“I don’t think your faith in me has been justified. I fucked up completely. I tried texting Taehyun a few times after our finals. He never opened my messages.”
Beomgyu picks at his fringe, tidying the strands matted against his forehead.
“I have faith in you to own up to your mistakes, not that you won’t do any wrong. It took a while, but at least you’ve finally acknowledged your wrongs. Well, I’m not exactly here to coddle you after all. I’m here to help you make amends with the person you did wrong. So, what do you want to do now?”
“What can I do? He won’t even respond to me, and if he did, how would I even have the gall to see him or talk to him about my feelings after I completely trampled on his?”
Flicking his forehead lightly, Beomgyu clicks his tongue. “Don’t think that way so soon. We’ll sort your thoughts out properly. Okay, if you were to be able to see him, what would you want to tell him?”
Yeonjun feels sick just processing it, especially when he’s reminded of how long he’s barely caught a glimpse of the other man for weeks now.
“I… I would want to apologize to him. To tell him that I’m sorry for hurting him. That I shouldn’t have made assumptions about him, shouldn’t have taken advantage of his patience, and then run away out of fear, instead of giving him an explanation. That I liked him and that’s why I got scared, and I should have talked things out, should have seen him for the person he had shown me he was, instead of following my own preconceived thoughts.”
He groans. “Fuck… It’s all over the place.”
Beomgyu pinches his cheek. “This isn’t an essay. You don’t need flow or some sort of structure. We’re talking about feelings. What he needs is your sincerity. And whatever you just told me is exactly that. I’m sure he would appreciate hearing your side of things, even if it doesn’t undo the hurt you caused him.”
Yeonjun can only pray his sincerity is even worth anything at this point.
-
If there’s something Yeonjun ever thought about Kai, it’s that he’s genuinely the sweetest person he knows.
But after hearing about how fiercely loyal he is to Taehyun, Yeonjun’s frankly afraid. Though as they stand outside the cafe Kai apparently works at, the man beside him seems to be much more nervous than him. It freaks him out a little when he begins muttering something under his breath.
“Uhm, are you praying or something?”
Beomgyu turns sharply, glaring at him with mania in his eyes.
“You should be praying, lad.”
Yeonjun blinks slowly. “Well, I should be. So why are you more nervous than I am?”
Beomgyu’s crazed facade melts. “I haven’t seen him in weeks. And honestly, I don’t know whether he even wants to see me right now.”
“Hey, you did nothing wrong. Even if he beats the shit out of me upon seeing me, I’ll at least explain to him that I shut you out too. So, you had no idea what I had done. Plus, you were the one who knocked sense into me when I said all those things about Taehyun.”
“He’s not gonna beat the shit out of you…” Beomgyu strokes his chin thoughtfully. “I hope…?”
“That doesn’t sound hopeful at all.”
“Well, I told you to sign up for Taehyun’s boxing classes long ago. Knowing how to fend some blows would’ve come in handy right now,” Beomgyu sniffs, earning himself a light shove on his shoulder before he steps closer to the glass to peer in. Following his line of vision, Yeonjun can spot Kai wiping down the bar counter.
“Oh, he still looks so yummy bent over like this.”
“That’s disgusting. I totally didn’t need to know that.”
Beomgyu clicks his tongue. “Okay, I’ll head in first. You stay here and wait for my signal.”
Swallowing dryly, Yeonjun nods, trying to hide behind a large poster as he peeks inside.
It’s somewhat heartwrenching as he watches Kai look up, astonishment gracing his features as Beomgyu walks towards him. But the man says something to him, and Kai’s surprise melts into something softer, something fonder as he rounds the counter to envelop Beomgyu in a tight hug.
Yeonjun’s heart aches more as he wonders whether he and Taehyun could ever share a moment that tender. Or perhaps, they already had, except Yeonjun decided to push the other man away out of fear.
But Beomgyu breaks their long, drawn-out embrace, and Yeonjun’s heart begins to race. This probably isn’t the only way for him to try and reach out to Taehyun, but he sincerely can’t wait till their summer break is over before trying to reach out to him again, and the prospect of failing to convince Kai to help him scares him to no end. Moreover, the last thing he wants is to cause another rift between Beomgyu and Kai after fucking up his own ghost of a relationship.
He stares at Kai’s face, feeling a little sick as he watches his expression turn cold after Beomgyu tells him something.
And then the man zeroes in on him, almost as if his gaze is piercing right into his eyes through the glass and through the poster he’s been trying to hide behind.
Turning around with his lips pursed dreadfully, Beomgyu signals for him to go in.
This is it, now or never. After all he has done, he doesn’t expect Kai to welcome him with open arms, but he’d be damned if he didn’t try his hardest to prove his sincerity.
If he couldn’t even convince Kai that he was serious about apologizing, it was unlikely he would be able to convey even a fraction of that to Taehyun either.
But with each step, trepidation fills him, and he’s certain he’s never seen Kai’s expression that sour in all the time he’s known him.
“What do you want?”
Beomgyu steps back, not wanting to interject. It is Yeonjun’s battle to fight after all.
“Hi Kai I–” he inhales, trying not to be fazed by the cynicism written all over Kai’s face. “I want to apologize.”
“Apologize?” he sneers, folding his arms. “To who? For what? For shit talking Taehyun after using him over and over? Make it make sense, Choi Yeonjun. You have no idea how broken you left him. I’m not letting you anywhere near him.”
Beomgyu winces softly, but that doesn’t seem to alleviate any of Kai’s harshness.
“I want to apologize to him, because I can’t take back my words, but I want to at least take accountability for them.”
His words hardly encapsulate everything he wants to say, and Kai doesn’t seem impressed at all.
“I hurt Taehyun, and I took advantage of how sweet he was. There’s no excuse for that but I– I didn’t tell him what I wanted to say. That I said all those things out of fear. Because– Because I like him, and I was afraid of getting hurt.”
It’s hardly the most convincing speech. If anything, his nervousness has him in a lethal grip.
“Why the hell should I believe you? You spent the past semester treating him like a pest. Do you know how hurt you left him? And he didn’t even dare to say a thing to me. I only found out when he finally broke down.”
Yeonjun’s heart aches at the reminder. He’d spent the past few weeks replaying the confrontation with Taehyun over and over, and the pain etched in his features remains indelible in his memories.
Now, it aches even more with the knowledge that he'd pushed Taehyun to the edge.
“Because I care about him, even if everything I’ve done so far makes it seem otherwise. Because I can’t let him go without knowing why I pushed him away. And because I love him. I at least want him to know that,” Yeonjun nearly crumbles at the admission, and each word feels so foreign to him, the past him would have found this version of him to be so pathetic and embarrassing.
“Oh please,” Kai spits. “Who cares if you think you love him? He's moved on by now. Weren't you the one who thinks he's easy? That he isn't serious about relationships? He doesn't care if you love him anymore.”
“It’s fine.” His racing heart has finally stilled, his emotions calm as he decides it there and then. “It doesn’t matter if this goes no where. I don’t want anything for him, just for him to know that he’s loved, and that I was always thankful for him, even though I was too afraid to show it.”
Kai goes silent and he purses his lips for a long moment.
It’s not as if Yeonjun held out lots of hope for Kai to relent to his request – he had hurt his best friend after all – but the hopeful part of him begs for just one more chance to make things right.
“I actually really hate you right now, Choi Yeonjun,” Kai mutters eventually, and Yeonjun braces himself for rejection. “I really hate that you said all those things about my best friend, hate that you kept cutting him off when he tried to reach you with all his heart.”
“But I hate it most that no matter how much I try to comfort Taehyun, he’s still struggling. And at this point, maybe he really needs some form of explanation. Closure maybe… I don’t know.”
Breath hitching, Yeonjun looks up, unable to stuff down the hope that begins to flood his chest as his worn heart finally stirs alive.
“He’s not in the city now, but I’ll ask him if he wants to meet you. I can’t guarantee he’ll want to talk to you, but just– just promise, if he does, that you won’t hurt him again. And that means respecting his wishes, once you’re done with whatever you want to say to him.”
It might not amount to anything, or if Taehyun’s even willing to meet him, perhaps, all he may be seeking is to close the chapter.
But for the first time in weeks, Yeonjun finds it much easier to breathe.
-
Yeonjun spends the next couple of days anxious, perking up every time his notification tone rings.
He tries to pull himself out of his slump too, forcing himself to clean his dorm, and deciding to finally call home after weeks of radio silence.
His mother asks him to visit home before his holidays end, and his heart throbs when he considers an alternate reality in which he hadn’t pushed Taehyun away. Perhaps, he’d have gotten to introduce Taehyun to his mother. Unlike him and his prickly personality, his mother was sweet and easily charmed. She’d have loved him.
But in this reality, none of that is possible, not when he’s left waiting for news that never comes.
That doesn’t stop his heart from yearning, for his walls to crumble when his mother asks how he’s been doing.
Yeonjun tells her about Taehyun – tells her about the boy who always beats him on the Dean’s List, tells her about the boy who’s an all-rounder because of how hard he works, tells her about the boy who cared for him when he was crumbling under pressure.
Yeonjun tells her she would’ve loved Taehyun if she got the chance to meet him.
He’s sure the strain in his voice is stark. His mother always knows either way.
She agrees, her voice gentle as she tells Yeonjun that she’d love to meet him too.
-
Yeonjun finally hears from Kai late afternoon on a Tuesday, three days after their conversation.
By then, he’s already deep-cleaned his dorm several times, purely out of nervousness, and each time Beomgyu came by he'd cast him glances so sympathetic, Yeonjun felt alarmingly pathetic.
Kai doesn't give him much details, all he does is text him the location of a beachside restaurant Taehyun's apparently working at for the summer.
Sokcho is nearly a three-hour bus ride out of the city, but Yeonjun doesn't give it a second thought before he hops on the first bus to the terminal.
But the long journey leaves him even antsier as he processes every scenario that could play out. It’s possible Kai’s taking him for a spin – he wouldn’t even be mad because he deserved it – or maybe, if he managed to see Taehyun, the man wouldn't even want to hear him out.
The closer he inches towards his destination, the more nervous he becomes, his heart racing as the words he’d prepared for days crumble into dust in his head.
Most of all, as he finds his way to the restaurant with lead for feet, he realizes that this is his last shot at fixing things. He’d been so used to definite odds – things that would yield its results immediately as long as he focused and worked methodically without a break. But feelings are different, they are delicate, and the possibility of Taehyun rejecting his apology or explanation is real enough to throw him off-kilter.
He’s desperate, he recognizes, but he’s long accepted that his love for Taehyun far surpasses his ego.
It had gotten dark on his way to Sokcho, and he wasn't prepared enough to crash somewhere for the night. Frankly, it’s the least of his concerns, when he’s now afraid of bothering Taehyun at such a late hour. The row of restaurants he passes are mostly closing, and he fears the man might have already left for the day.
A part of him wants to laugh. Slow karma, the voice in his head mocks. For someone who had confidently said he found love to be stupid, his actions are laughable. Traveling out of town for three hours without a plan, arriving way too late for Taehyun to even still be around. The old him would have had a big laugh.
The biggest laugh, especially when he arrives at the restaurant to find it dark and locked.
His heart sinks. Sinks infinitely. He doesn’t even know if he’s allowed to contact Taehyun. If he even should.
The crowd’s dwindled massively by now, the closing restaurants and late summer heat having driven most people closer to the port. Yeonjun watches the myriad of lights sparkle in the distance, his eyes growing slightly blurry as it dampens.
He’ll try again tomorrow, he tells himself, sitting down on the steps leading up to the establishment as he tries to stop his thoughts from spiraling.
Yet again, he’d missed another opportunity to try and fix things.
He takes his phone out with shaky hands and though he’s intended to look for an accommodation for the night, he ends up giving in to his stupid desires to tap into his chat with Taehyun. The last ten messages remain unread. Figures, he’d even sent half of those while he got wasted one night he felt especially down.
But he can’t help but scroll all the way up to their first few messages. Back to the time Yeonjun thinks their relationship began to shift for the first time. Back when he let Taehyun nap at his dorm. Back when – he now acknowledges – he’s been slightly enamored by the other man as he turned bashful.
2025/3/26
Kang Taehyun
Drunk? No
But drunk in love with you? Always
Received 3.16am
Yeonjun knows he shouldn’t, but he keeps scrolling. Keeps scrolling as he watches how Taehyun’s messages began to grow increasingly hollow with each rejection from him.
It’s funny, because Yeonjun remembers Taehyun calling him out for treating him like a parasite. But as he watches how he’d left Taehyun increasingly withdrawn with his actions, he feels more like the parasite, having drained the man of all his feelings when all Taehyun wanted was to care for him.
Nausea sweeps over him the further he scrolls, till he’s on his latest chain of unread messages.
He’s the parasite. Only a parasite would bug someone who doesn't want to see him this relentlessly. Only a parasite would follow Taehyun all this way after already hurting him endlessly.
Staring at the last few messages left unread leaves him feeling even sicker.
It’s a wonder Taehyun hasn’t actually blocked him.
He must have stared at the screen for minutes, because it begins to dim, till something shifts on the screen and Yeonjun straightens up in confusion.
It must be a glitch, some sort of hallucination maybe, but he taps at the screen urgently, eyes watering as the ‘Read’ notification glares back at him.
He has no time to react, no time to prepare himself for what’s to come, when a new message actually comes in.
Today
Kang Taehyun
You’re blocking the entrance
Watch out behind you
Received 11.12pm
Yeonjun’s breath hitches, his heart nearly stopping as he stares back at the screen in disbelief. But before he can orient himself, the clicking of a lock behind him sends him to his feet as he spins around, nearly stumbling down the steps.
It’s completely justified, especially when the glass door is finally swung open.
Yeonjun swears his breath is knocked right out of his lungs. Swears that he’s completely immobilized as he stares at the figure standing behind the door.
It’s still dark inside the restaurant, but even in the dim lighting, Yeonjun can still make out Taehyun’s features, can still make out every lovely feature on the man’s beautiful face.
Yet, the exhaustion settling in the creases between his eyebrows is stark, and Yeonjun swallows tightly.
“For someone always so rational, you’re really making a fool of yourself by coming at this hour and sitting outside like this.”
Meanwhile, Yeonjun can’t formulate a single word, his heart caught in his throat.
“Kai said you wanted to talk. Get on with it, it’s late.”
“Taehyun I–I’m sorry,” he chokes up, mind buzzing with static, and he remains stupidly silent long.
“Is that it?”
Yeonjun’s stomach lurches. He could lose his chance forever if he continues to choke up like that.
“No, I’m sorry for everything. For hurting you time and again, for running away each time you wanted to reach out, saying those terrible things about you, even though all you did was care for me. There was no excuse.”
There’s so much more he wants to say, but his mind draws a blank the moment he meets Taehyun’s hard gaze.
“Okay.”
Yeonjun makes a sound of confusion, his voice still trembling.
“You came to apologize, right? I accept it.”
Yeonjun had expected to be yelled at, and honestly, he hoped that was the case, because that was exactly what he deserved. But the other man’s calm response only brings forth a stronger sense of foreboding.
“If anything, I should apologize too.”
No, this was not how things were meant to go, but Taehyun’s lips keep moving as he runs his hand through his hair with a sigh.
“I had enough time to think, and I was really being quite the nuisance, huh. I was clinging to you even though you clearly didn’t want me around.”
Yeonjun shakes his head, his eyes growing wet with disbelief.
“I’m not saying this to guilt trip you. Because it’s clear now that I misread all your signals, thinking you wanted me too. I should’ve respected your wishes when you clearly wanted that night to be a one-time thing. And yet, I made the same mistake again, foolishly thinking my company would be anything but a bother to you. Thinking back, I’m the one who should be embarrassed by my behavior. I should have taken a hint.”
Yeonjun feels like throwing up. How could Taehyun be apologizing when he had done absolutely nothing wrong?
“That’s not–”
“I don’t… I’m usually a lot more level-headed. I don’t know what came over me. And lashing out, cursing at you that– that was something I shouldn’t have done. I’m sorry.”
Taehyun’s gaze is faraway. If anything, he isn’t even looking at Yeonjun. It’s as if he’d already given up on trying to reach him.
“Now we’ve gotten it all sorted out, right? You can stop feeling bad about everything. I was at fault too.”
Yeonjun’s desperation skyrockets when he realizes what the note of finality in Taehyun’s voice means.
“No!” His sharp voice cuts through the air and Yeonjun never knew he could sound this desperate, this desolate, surprise flits across Taehyun’s features at his interruption.
“You didn’t misread my signals. You didn’t. Back when you said you thought I wanted you too. You were right. Fuck. I sound fucking stupid, given I was the one who pushed you away. But I like you, I love you, I want you and that’s what made me so fucking terrified.”
Taehyun’s lips part silently as he finally looks at Yeonjun.
“I’m afraid of a lot of things. I’m terrified when the odds are uncertain, and things like feelings they– I would never know what you’re thinking. At the back of my head, I could see how sincere you were in trying to care for me, but there’s this– always this fucking voice in my head that reminds me how things like feelings are unpredictable. You could leave me anytime. You could get bored of me, you could get sick of someone as grumpy, as sour as me.”
He inhales, trying to get his thoughts together without breaking down again. But his mouth moves faster than anything, his desperation getting the better of him.
“I liked you, I wanted you, I knew I did, but that was what terrified me the most. You were making me feel things I never thought I could, I was even getting embarrassingly possessive of you when I didn’t even have the right to, I was wanting you for myself, to the point I didn’t know how to grapple with it. Because if I let myself love you, I wouldn’t know how to survive once you decided you were done.”
“I know I said terrible things about you. But I was too scared of acknowledging that I was falling for you. After we– After we fucked, it felt like I was on the top of the world with you this close to me, but then the fear kicked in immediately and I just crashed. Things like one-night stands, parties, flirting, they’re all new to me. But I feared that wasn’t the case for you.”
Yeonjun lets out a sardonic laugh. A hypocrite. He knows he’s one.
“I didn’t want to hear you tell me it meant nothing to you, I was afraid of getting hurt. And then I did the exact same thing to you just to protect myself from this made-up version of you in my head. It was the same when you comforted me. You weren’t coming on too strong. It was me who realized that I had already fallen too deeply for you. I had to run, I had to leave because I was terrified, and I didn’t know how to deal with any of my fears.”
It takes a moment for him to realize his cheeks are wet, but when he does, he huffs again at how pathetic he’s being.
“I didn’t know how to deal with the fact that I love you.”
He gazes back at Taehyun, throat turning dry when he meets the man’s glassy eyes. The air around them is so brittle Yeonjun thinks everything might shatter into smithereens if he just so as moved wrong.
“And now?”
The two words hang over Yeonjun’s head heavily. Heavy with hope and fear alike.
“What about now?”
The silence is deafening. But greed. Fucking greed is overwhelming Yeonjun unhealthily. Making his world spin and halt at the same time.
“Now, I want you to know that I can’t let you go again. I don't want to.”
Taehyun looks back at him, scrutinizing, reading, thinking.
“And if I’ve moved on?”
It hurts, but Yeonjun’s better than that. Better than the bitter, terrified version of himself who couldn’t handle his own feelings properly.
“And if you’ve moved on, that’s fine. Because I love you the same. And you deserve to know you’re loved. Even if it’s just by someone like me.”
Taehyun hangs his head low, the hair falling over his face obscuring most of it from Yeonjun’s vision.
“I’m sorry for using you, for running away, for saying all those things out of defensiveness. I just. There’s no excuse.”
He reaches out carefully, icy fingers finding Taehyun’s and his heart sinks infinitely with the way the man’s shoulders shake, breaths staggered and wet.
Yeonjun doesn’t let go this time. He doesn’t think he can.
-
Years ago, when Yeonjun first befriended Beomgyu, his best friend had told him that he’s never met anyone as methodical and rational as him.
Now, as he sits awkwardly on the edge of the bed in a hastily booked hotel room, he processes everything that had happened in the past five hours or so.. He’d never cared for love his entire life, and yet, in the past few weeks, he’s cried about a man, drunk texted him even, begged his friend for information on how to find him, and travelled three hours out of the city late at night just to beg for a chance to apologize.
The Yeonjun from months ago would’ve scoffed at him and laughed in his face. But here he is, and he doesn’t think he regrets any of it.
“Hey.”
The soft voice tears him out of his thoughts, and he turns to look at Taehyun who’s just emerged from the bathroom. His hair is damp, and he looks incredibly soft and fluffy dressed down like this. Taehyun stares at him for a long beat, and only then, is Yeonjun a little more conscious of the fact that he’s also dressed in the other man’s clothes, which he had borrowed.
Taehyun had apparently been on a short working holiday at his aunt’s restaurant, and it was hard for Yeonjun to crash his room, when he was sharing it with his cousin. So he’d grabbed some clothes before they decided to book a hotel room for the night.
Yeonjun can’t say he minds the privacy, especially when he’s yearned for the other man for so long, but his nerves are all over the place, when he realizes they’re spending the night together for the first time, much less after being apart for such a long time.
But he only realizes that he’s not alone in his nervousness when the other man stares at him for a long while.
“You’re not… You’re not regretting this, right?”
Shaking his head furiously, Yeonjun feels the heat rising to his cheeks. “It’s not that. I just can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that you’re here. I didn’t want to hold out any hope, especially when I was the one who did you wrong. And all of this–” he gestures vaguely before feeling a little stupid. “I’m new to all of this. D-Dating and all.”
The stutter is so embarrassing, Yeonjun wants to expire right this instant, but his humiliation dissipates the moment Taehyun settles down next to him, taking his hand. Instead, he actually feels like crying, which is nothing better, to be honest. They’d never exactly shared such tender touches before, or rather, Yeonjun had never allowed it, and it was driving him a bit crazy.
“I understand. We can take things slow. Do you want to– Can we cuddle? Or just lie together?”
“You don’t have to ask everything.” Bold words for Yeonjun, whose ears and cheeks are still aflame.
“Well, I’m as unsure as you are, I guess. I still don’t know what I can do, what I’m allowed to do. Or what you’re not comfortable with. Taking things slow is… is something easier said than understood.”
Yeonjun stills for a moment. And he realizes it will take a long time for Taehyun to get used to the fact that he doesn’t deserve to be tiptoeing around him. And that he also isn’t entitled to throwing tantrums without a care and expecting Taehyun always to be willing to tolerate him.
But he also knows it’s a process. Not one that can be spurred with just words, but one that has to be proven through actions — actions Yeonjun is now responsible for.
He tugs Taehyun down, maneuvering them till they’re lying next to each other. It’s a bit awkward, but Yeonjun keeps the other man’s fingers interlaced with his, despite the strange position.
“We can take the time to figure things out. I like being close to you, and I’m sorry I treated you in a way that made you second-guess yourself. But I have been working on it, and I want to be a better person, too. A better lover to you. So please don’t feel like you have to indulge or tolerate me when I’m doing too much.”
He only realizes the slip of his tongue when Taehyun’s jaw goes slack, his wide eyes trained on him.
“Oh– I’m sorry I–”
“No, that’s not it. We don’t need to define our relationship if you’re not comfortable with it. It’s just… when Kai said you wanted to talk to me, I didn't want to keep my hopes up or anything. I didn’t think you’d drop everything and come over so late, so t’s still hard for me to process that you’re here.”
“I didn’t want to wait. You were the only thing on my mind for weeks, and I knew I’d go crazy if I lost my chance to apologize.”
He musters all his courage to flip on his side, facing Taehyun so they’re much closer. It’s crazy how they’d done much dirtier deeds, yet this simple proximity and innocent handholding have Yeonjun’s heart running a mile a minute.
Blinking rapidly, Taehyun pauses a moment before turning his way too and placing his palm on Yeonjun’s waist.
It sends a shiver up his spine.
“You know, unlike how I seem and what you thought, I don’t usually catch feelings easily.”
“I’m sorry for assuming.”
Taehyun shakes his head quickly. “It’s not that. It’s just that I looked up to you for a long while, even though I know you saw me as an academic rival. I’d see you incredibly focused in the library, in the cafes around, and even in class, no matter how boring or how inept any lecturer or TA was, you were always listening, never arrogant or dismissive. Being assigned to work with you on the project had me nervous too.”
“And your nervous mechanism is to flirt?” Yeonjun teases, slightly amused when he’s reminded of the way he was practically exploding with anger and shyness each time the other man flirted with him.
“Well… You were on edge around me, and I wanted to lighten the atmosphere. I realize now that it gave you the wrong impression about me instead.” Taehyun laughs, and Yeonjun doesn’t expect relief to flood him as it does when he finally hears the other man relax.
“I’m sorry for assuming the worst, but for the record, your flirting was incredibly annoying.”
“You make this crazy cute nose scrunch every time you’re irritated and embarrassed. I like it a lot,” Taehyun snickers, and Yeonjun quickly irons his features out. “Exactly that.”
“I knew you were pissing me off on purpose.”
“Yeah,” Taehyun breathes, his smile fading to be replaced by some sort of wonder as he stares at Yeonjun’s face.
“What?”
“Nothing, didn’t see you for weeks, just trying to get my fill.”
Taehyun has no idea how crazy those words make him. No idea how they’re making Yeonjun burn up and stop breathing altogether.
He’d think of a retort, except, his mind turns to complete mush when Taehyun closes their distance to press him on his back till he’s on top, his face hovering just inches away from Yeonjun’s.
“You’re so pretty,” he murmurs, almost mindlessly, and Yeonjun would say the same right back, if his brain weren’t short-circuiting. “I was sure I lost you and tried to move on, but I just couldn’t. And at some point, I realized, even if more time passed, I’d still always have you on my mind. My brain’s a bit honest like that.”
In this proximity, he can feel Taehyun’s body pressed against his, feel his breath ghost his lips.
For once, Yeonjun takes the initiative to loop his arms around Taehyun’s waist, pulling him down till their chests are flush against each other.
Taehyun widens his eyes by a tiny fraction, before something hungrier flits across his irises.
“Is it selfish if I ask if you missed me?” he whispers, gaze trailing lower to Yeonjun’s lips.
Yeonjun answers him in the only way he knows, fingers threading Taehyun’s hair as he brings him down.
Brings him closer till their lips collide.
And it’s messy, wet, incredibly heated, as Taehyun slides his tongue between his parted lips urgently as if he’s parched. And Yeonjun supposes he might be just as desperate, given how he’s not been able to get the memories of that night out of his head.
But Taehyun lets out a muffled moan the moment Yeonjun swipes his tongue across his lower lip and he’s an absolute goner.
Yeonjun doesn’t remember ever feeling so hungry. Perhaps the separation, coupled with his acceptance of his fatal attraction towards the man, had somehow altered his brain chemistry.
It's beyond lust, he thinks ironically, as he spreads his legs open, clinging onto Taehyun's thighs as he does.
He doesn't have time, or even any brainspace, to contemplate whether they're moving too fast. Not when Taehyun simply grinds down with a groan.
Meanwhile, Yeonjun doesn't think he's ever felt as needy as he does right now, bucking his hips desperately with his ankles locked around Taehyun.
But Taehyun's force is unparalleled, and Yeonjun ends up burying his face in the other man's neck, too overwhelmed to move as he’s jostled against the mattress with each relentless thrust.
“Ah! Tyun, please–”
“Fuck,” Taehyun curses, low and heavy with arousal as he slides a hand under Yeonjun's shirt to feel more of him.
Shuddering, Yeonjun is struck with the realization that they'd never been fully bare against each other.
But that need is shoved to the back of his mind with how urgently Taehyun continues to rut against him, sending jolts of pleasure up his spine till they're both dangerously close to the edge.
“Tyun, I'm– Gonna come–” he chokes, though his warning comes a bit late when he spills in his pants, nails digging into Taehyun's back and prompting the other man to follow suit within seconds.
Yeonjun's orgasm crashes through his body, and he mindlessly slips his own hands under Taehyun's shirt to feel his burning skin against his fingertips.
It feels surreal, feels impossibly numbing when he barely processes Taehyun's here, despite the number of times he pushed him away.
Still here, despite the number of times he fucked up.
“Baby?”
Yeonjun doesn't even realize the choked sobs leaving his lips, only escalating into more uncontrollable cries when he hears the term of endearment Taehyun calls him.
“Baby, what's wrong?”
Taehyun tries to pry himself off to look at his face, but Yeonjun only finds his grip around the other man's torso tightening on instinct.
He doesn't want to, can’t let go, if he's being dead honest with himself, so he does his best to shake his head.
“Sorry,” he gasps, and Taehyun seems to take a moment before he understands what Yeonjun’s really apologizing for.
“It’s okay baby, I’m not going anywhere.”
Their clothes are uncomfortably soiled, yet Yeonjun continues to cling to Taehyun, refusing to let go.
Despite the koala clinging to him, Taehyun manages to turn them so they’re on their sides instead, though he doesn’t attempt to peel himself away again.
They still have to clean up their mess, still have to figure out how to fit into each other’s lives, and Yeonjun still has to watch and wait to see if things will crash and fall as he always feared.
But for now, in Taehyun’s arms, it’s hard for him to feel daunted by any of that.
-
Yeonjun digs his toes into the warm sand, wiggling them as he stares out in the distance.
It’d been a long while since he visited the beach and the smell of salt flooding his sinuses is somehow calming. Having visited without making any plans prior, he’s pretty much left with nothing but his phone as he tries to explore the town alone while Taehyun’s at work.
They’d spent the morning together with Yeonjun extending his stay at the hotel for another three days before Taehyun led him back to his aunt’s house to get them some clothes. It was an embarrassing affair washing all the soiled clothes but thankfully, Taehyun decided to show mercy instead of teasing him for how red his face had gotten.
Eventually, he had to return back to the restaurant for work after they shared a quiet breakfast together.
It’s barely been half a day since then, but Yeonjun hasn’t been able to get the other man out of his mind. Or rather, his lover, as he had so easily proclaimed the night before.
Thinking back about how he’d behaved makes him want to cringe, but he supposes this is what being in love must feel like. Something that makes him irrational enough to do things he’d scoff at others for back then.
Slow karma, he thinks to himself again, but this time, his heart feels less heavy than it did when he was on his way to Sokcho.
But staring at the glittering sea that’s now illuminated by the pinkish setting sun, he feels his heart calming down a little. He’s been sitting here for the past hour or so after getting tired of strolling around, not wanting to stray too far away from Taehyun’s restaurant.
It’s strange acknowledging the desire to be around someone. There’s this burning need in his veins to stay close to Taehyun, as if his body simply detests being apart from the other man. Even the past six hours exploring alone had crawled by slower than he thought.
After a day of mindless roaming about and staring into the horizon at the beach, he finally checks his phone, unsurprised by the string of messages from Beomgyu flooding his inbox once he unlocks it.
He decides to simply call his best friend, his muscles far too relaxed for him to keep up with the other man’s rapid texting. Beomgyu picks up after less than two rings and he instantly feels guilty for leaving him hanging.
“Bitch, where the fuck have you been?!”
The request to switch to a video call comes in before he can even respond. He’s slightly flushed from the heat and definitely wind-swept, but he accepts the request anyway. He owes Beomgyu way too much.
It takes a lot not to laugh when he’s greeted by the sight of his best friend with his face full of cleansing cream and his hair swept up by a headband with bear ears.
“You. Stay the fuck there before you disappear and I can’t get you again.”
Yeonjun spends the next couple of minutes watching Beomgyu scrub at his face furiously like a raccoon before he pops back up and musters the meanest glare.
“Do I need to kill Taehyun? What did he do to you? Did you even find him? Why did you take so long to reply me?!”
Yeonjun finally finds it in him to laugh at the worried response and he fully expects Beomgyu to curse at him, though it never comes. He peeks at his screen, finding Beomgyu staring at him.
“Sorry,” he clears his throat.
“No but… I’ll take it that it went fine?” Beomgyu ventures carefully.
“Yeah, I managed to apologize.”
“...And…?”
“I explained my fears, and he listened. You know, I panicked when he started apologizing for misreading my signals. Taehyun he… he’s too nice sometimes, you know? But he forgave me and… yeah. We’re good now. Taking things slow and testing waters, mostly.”
Beomgyu lets out a loud sigh of relief before he waddles out of the bathroom to plop down on his bed. “Thank god, I was stressing about how to comfort you if things went awry.”
Yeonjun tucks his chin between his knees, digging his toes deeper into the toasty sand.
“Thank you, Beomgyu, for pulling my head out of my ass and sticking by me till I manage to make amends. And sorry again for worrying you and… making things bad for you and Kai.”
His friend sighs, though the fond smile on his face is hard to hide.
“You owe me! No but… I’m glad things worked out. I’ve… never seen you like this, I didn’t know how much space to give you, or even whether I should interfere yet.”
“Like what?”
“This emotionally affected, I guess. Even when you didn’t do well for a paper or something, you wouldn’t be this hung up. You’d bounce back pretty quickly. And to see you so out of it, you couldn’t even crawl out of bed, made my heart ache.”
“I was at fault though,” Yeonjun mumbles.
“Sure you were, but some of your fears were valid. You were just a crazy bitch about it.”
Yeonjun scowls, cussing at Beomgyu, who takes it all gleefully.
“Anyways, what’s going on now? Why are you still in Sokcho?”
Shrugging, he tries not to let his bashfulness show too obviously. “Just thought I’d stay for a while before I have to go back for my holiday internship. Since, well. Uhm, Taehyun will be helping his aunt out here for a couple more weeks.”
Faking his nonchalance doesn’t help, and Beomgyu’s lips turn into a conspiratorial grin almost instantly. The waggling eyebrows piss Yeonjun off the most, though, and he sends a few choice words his friend’s way, which all go ignored.
“Cake by the ocean, sex on the beach! That’s gay as fuck, dude. Taking it suuuuper slow, I bet.”
Yeonjun rolls his eyes at how crude Beomgyu is, though that doesn’t stop him from blushing. Thankfully, most of the crowd has dispersed to grab their dinner, and there’s no one around to chide Beomgyu and him for their inappropriate non-public-friendly conversation.
“Enough about me, how is…”
The way Beomgyu’s mischievous expression drops worries Yeonjun a little, till another tinier, shier smile graces his lips a few seconds later.
“We’re fine. After you guys met, we started talking more frequently again, and finally, we met up properly again yesterday.”
“Do you mean he was worried about me looking for Taehyun, and you saw your chance to play the valiant knight by swooping right in?”
“Absolutely. Oh, you should have seen how he blushed when I told him I had a reaaally good way to distract him from his worries.” The derpy, evil grin on Beomgyu’s face is despicable, and Yeonjun shakes his head in amusement.
“That’s absolutely disgusting, and I do not need to hear the details.”
“Hehe. I don’t care. I’ll spam you later on anyway. Payback for all the stress you caused me. But anyway, Kai also said, if Taehyun forgives you, to let you know he doesn’t actually hate you. He just wanted to be firm to see how sincere you were about making amends.”
Waving him off, Yeonjun doesn’t dwell on it too much. “It’s fine, I didn’t expect to be welcomed with open arms either after what I did. I’m still sorry for ruining things between you guys.”
“Stop apologizing for that, we made our own choices–” Beomgyu pauses suddenly, his expression turning mischievous as he grins. “Okay, uh. I’ve gotta go! Catch you when you’re back! Don’t get fucked too hard, you can’t walk! Bye!”
He hangs up abruptly, leaving Yeonjun confused till he feels arms slither around his waist. Before he can even turn around, his new company hooks his chin on top of his head before giggling softly.
“Missed me?”
Yeonjun’s heart stutters, and his body moves on autopilot as he straightens his knees so Taehyun can backhug him properly. Taehyun does exactly that, and in the corniest way possible, he feels butterflies in his stomach.
“I think you narrowly missed getting punched in the face if I didn’t already know it was you,” he attempts to snark.
“Oh, but I could be an imposter though? A really good one,” Taehyun teases, and Yeonjun barely refrains from retorting that he already has the weight of the other man’s touch memorized. It’s way too corny, and Taehyun would never let him live this down if he actually says it. But he finds the other man’s wrist anyway, holding it gently in place.
“Why are you so early?”
“Hm? Saw you lounging about the beach for way too long and decided to come over.”
“I like the view. The live ASMR and stuff. Very therapeutic.”
Squeezing his waist, Taehyun giggles. “I missed you, so I asked to leave early.”
“Abandoning them during the dinner rush hour, huh. You’re a fiend.”
“Well…” His voice turns a little more solemn, a little more unsure, almost. “I just wanted to remind myself that you’re really here.”
“I am,” Yeonjun assures, before turning around fully. Sand seeps into his clothes with the movement, but he’s hardly bothered by it. “It’s gonna be hard for you to get rid of me now, if anything.”
Taehyun stares at him for a long moment before he breaks into a small smile.
“You wish.”
-
“Stop bouncing your knee, you’re shaking the whole fucking table,” Beomgyu complains, swiping his cup of iced tea from the table before it begins sloshing along with the rest of the food.
Yeonjun glares at the man, but that’s as far as his retaliation goes, because the nervousness creeps into his chest all over again once he looks away.
“Only a fucking nerd like you would be so nervous over a double date.”
“That’s not why I’m nervous, you idiot,” he spits defensively, only earning himself an eyeroll from Beomgyu.
It’s not like his friend isn’t aware of the reason why he’s anxious about having dinner as a double date sort of thing. The thing is that he hasn’t seen Kai since the last time he begged the man to help him find Taehyun, and back then, Kai clearly hated him.
Yeonjun doesn’t usually care what people think of him, but this is Kai – Beomgyu’s boyfriend and Taehyun’s best friend. From what he heard, that Soobin guy, also known as his ‘childhood friend’, is plenty tight with Kai. What if he doesn’t approve of him and coerces Taehyun to start looking at other (Choi) options (Soobin)?!
“Nooooo Kai doesn’t hate you, he thought you were really nice back then for encouraging him to pursue meeeee,” Beomgyu repeats for the sixth time in the past hour, since Yeonjun wouldn’t stop bugging him all the way here and even after they arrived at the restaurant.
“He hates me, I’m cooked…”
Beomgyu groans, and he looks like he’s about to yell, though it completely dissipates abruptly, replaced by a bright, sickeningly lovelorn beam.
“Kai-ya!”
Yeonjun gulps, about to turn to greet the pair before Kai throws his bag on the chair beside Beomgyu, only to point an accusing finger at him.
“You. Choi Yeonjun. I hate you.”
His heart lurches, blood running completely ice cold as his lips part silently.
Meanwhile, Taehyun trails behind him like nothing’s happened, simply walking over to Yeonjun’s side and bending down to press a kiss on his cheek before sitting down.
“What?” he squeaks, except it goes ignored when Kai shifts to point at his own best friend too.
“And you, Kang Taehyun, I hate you too. You’re not spared just because you aren’t first anymore.”
“Wait what? What’s going on?!” Yeonjun seems to be the only one panicking.
This prompts Taehyun to turn to him while he raises an eyebrow. “Do you really not know?”
Shaking his head in confusion, Yeonjun feels like he’s five seconds from throwing up if they keep him in the dark any longer.
Even Beomgyu looks shocked. “Wait. I didn’t know that he didn’t know yet because he wouldn’t stop talking about this dinner! Wow, Taehyun, you’ve actually changed Yeonjun. The biggest nerd on Earth!”
“Hey!” he yells back, and if Taehyun weren’t looping his arm around his waist, he would have lunged across the table to throw hands.
He’s interrupted when Kai shoves his phone in his face.
It takes a moment for the context to sink in before he realizes he’s looking at the semester’s Dean’s List.
“Oh.”
“Not to be a homewrecker, but before you guys got together, that was his lifelong dream,” Beomgyu quips.
“How can you guys still top the Dean’s list while literally going through a devastating divorce?! Stop fucking up the bell curve, I’m boycotting any classes y’all take from now on!”
Taehyun puts both hands up in surrender. “Not gonna lie, I didn’t do anything different. If anything, my scores are largely the same.”
“Ah but I think the divorce really drove out the overachiever in Jjunie though, he was pulling all-nighters after all-nighters, he looked just like a zombie after his last paper,” Beomgyu comments thoughtfully.
Yeonjun can only fib before he glancing timidly at Kai. “Well, but… You don’t actually hate me, do you?”
Beomgyu looks at him incredulously. “Are you trying to steal my boyfriend?”
“Ew, what the hell?” This time, it’s Taehyun who speaks up, and Yeonjun never knew how his boyfriend getting slightly possessive would make him feel this hot.
“Why the ‘ew’?! I think I would make a really cute match for Yeonjunnie too!” Kai’s random outburst leaves their partners arguing heatedly, though Yeonjun doesn’t miss the way Kai winks at him discreetly, a small smile on his face.
Suddenly, the tension in his chest fades away at the assurance, and he relaxes for the first time in the entire day, letting the other three bicker away.
It takes a few more minutes for their chatter to die down before they order their food.
Meanwhile, Taehyun finds his hand under the table, turning to him and tilting his head. Sometimes, it’s as if remnants of their wounds still remain, and his boyfriend is still particularly sensitive towards his mood changes, especially when anyone brings up their rough patch.
It’s nothing more than a questioning smile, a comforting upturn of his lips, but Yeonjun realizes how lucky he is to have Taehyun – Taehyun who has taken the time to work his way into his heart, Taehyun who learns more about him constantly, Taehyun who has been patient enough to work things out with him each day.
Yeonjun returns his smile, squeezing his hand.
“I’m good.”