Chapter Text
When I love, I love: wholly, thoroughly
completely, drowning in everything. Every
glance can be a conversation, eyes just
playing and saying what needs to be said.
Silence is loud, and the air becomes heavy. I
want you. I want all of you.
— Warsan Shire
The rain had started as a drizzle, the very soft kind.
On a normal day, Beomgyu wouldn’t notice the drops of water until his shirt was wet or they felt like sweat on his forehead. He did not notice it this time because the drizzle had quickly turned into rain. The scattered clouds had gathered together into one, covering the sky with a thick gray blanket, and the breeze had become wind.
This was how rain announced its arrival, with little drops that opened the way for heavier ones.
Beomgyu saw the people around him running to hide, but somehow he didn’t care about the rain or about his clothes getting wet. The rain felt like a hug, and he needed the water to wash him over. To wash it all away: Taehyun’s words, the fantasy he had built slowly and inconsistently over the years, the hope that had bloomed despite the circumstances, and the doubt that kept eating him from the inside.
Please take it all away.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
Had Kai fallen in love with Soobin that fast? Had Soobin been able to give Kai something Beomgyu couldn’t? Was Beomgyu not enough?
And if so, why did Kai keep acting like that? Running under the rain, toward him.
Why was everything he did another drop of water in a glass filled to the brim?
Beomgyu stood there, in the middle of the street, wondering and thinking over and over again, running in circles without moving. Seeing people pass by, having places to go back to, having someone to hold. Walking out was supposed to help him clear his mind, but somehow it only indulged him to think further about everything he had been missing out on—and hoped for.
He didn’t walk long enough for him not to remember where he was standing, which didn’t matter anyway, but those were blocks away enough so his parents wouldn’t easily find him. And when his feet had finally stopped moving, his mind couldn’t.
It was not supposed to be this way; how did he allow so much time to pass him by? Why did he never talk about how he felt? Directly, properly. Perhaps, if he had spoken he wouldn’t be here drenched, in the middle of the street, overthinking about the past, about his present, about what all of this meant for his future, too. About how now he would have to say goodbye for good, for his own good, about how Kai would tell him the business can’t run without him, or how the office feels more alive with him around, or how he is going to miss him every morning and night. All that being another reason why he, foolishly, had stayed this long: Kai wouldn’t let him go.
It was easy to get caught in a loop. Kai didn’t want to let him go because he loved him, right? But then why would he not say it? Why hide things from him? Why be with other people? Why marry Soobin?
“Hyung!”
The scream wasn’t urgent, but confused and worried and directed at him. Beomgyu knew this, as he knew everything else, because Kai was the voice’s owner. Beomgyu recognized his body hidden under that thick black coat, the one he carried everywhere. Despite the blue filter in the air and the thousands of drops of water falling between them, he knew him. He’d known him even before seeing him.
“Hyung,” Kai called again, calmer, void of air from rushing once he was close enough, and instantly he took the coat off his head and placed it over Beomgyu’s head. “Why are you out? You are drenched,” he started pulling him to walk somewhere else, but Beomgyu barely moved. “We need to find a roof. It’s not gonna get any better. You could get sick.”
Beomgyu was shaking.
On a different day, Beomgyu would have cared about getting wet. A few drops, he wouldn’t mind but a storm would have driven him insane. The only calm he found in the storm was inside the house, with music, with a fireplace, with warm soup, and warm arms. On a different day, Beomgyu would’ve run away from this moment, he would have escaped and they wouldn’t have ever talked about this, Kai would have asked no questions and Beomgyu could have lived with it. But right now he had no place to hide, no home, no music, and no warmth. Going back would also mean accepting what he had learned today, and living with it.
“Hyung, your neck is—”
“Stop,” Beomgyu breathed out.
“What? We need to move!”
He could follow Kai and go back to safety like they always did, or he could stay in the rain, feeling it all.
“This,” Beomgyu said as he pulled the coat off his head begrudgingly, and held it out to the younger. “Can we just stop this?”
Kai looked at him with confusion, a deeper and more worried expression than before. He didn’t take the coat back, instead, he held Beomgyu by the shoulders. “Can we hide from the rain first?”
“No. I need you to stop it. Just stop looking at me like that, and stop trying to protect me like that, and caring for me like that.” Beomgyu’s eyes started to burn as the pain pressed his head, and while he could hide with the rain some of the tears escaping, he couldn’t hide the closing of his throat, or the breaking of his voice.
“Like what?”
“Like you care for me! Stop acting like I am important to you and then hiding things from me and doing stuff behind my back. You said—we said we’d tell each other everything, and you have not.”
Kai turned away. “I know,” he murmured after a while.
This, too, felt like a confession, a long-time guarded truth. It hurt. Yet, as drops of water fell from Kai’s hair down his face, something inside Beomgyu, perhaps habituality, wanted to brush them off and still care for him.
He covered this want with words. “Are you marrying him?”
“What?” Kai looked up, his eyebrows knitted in confusion, but Beomgyu looked down at his hands tightly gripping the coat. He wanted to rip it, throw it away, not let it go, hold it close.
“Are you marrying him? Do those mean some sort of promise? Is it still business—Is it still friendship?”
The younger’s mouth twisted down. “What is this about?”
“You bought a pair of rings.”
Kai didn’t reply, and Beomgyu wouldn’t have known the reason but he could tell Kai didn’t understand what he was talking about.
“Taehyun told me about it, he told me about these other things you’ve been buying without telling me. Are you marrying Soobin? It’s fine, you know? I know I fucked up that day asking you if you loved me, but I can live with your answer. I can deal with it, but you won’t even talk to me about what you want. Shouldn’t I have known if you liked someone? If you wanted to be with someone else, shouldn’t we have stopped this then?”
“Do you think I would marry someone I became friends with just a few months ago? Do you think I would still try to be with you if I wanted someone else?”
Beomgyu squinted, angry. “Every time you signed a contract there was a bed in the middle.”
“I didn’t know anything before, I’ve learned. And I stopped that ages ago,” Kai got closer to Beomgyu’s face, “because you didn’t tell me it bothered you but you didn’t hide it either. The next morning you wouldn’t talk to me, shouldn’t you have told me you disliked it?”
“I was not to forbid you from anything, we weren’t exclusive, so whatever those feelings were, I had to understand them myself first. But if you fell for someone then we should have stopped! We should have stopped the moment you fell for someone! You should’ve told me the moment you fell for someone so I, too, stopped this nonsen—”
“What if the one I fell for was you?” Kai deadpanned. “I stopped being with everyone else the moment I knew I wanted to be with you, and that was a long time ago. I’ve known I wanted to be with you for years and I was afraid you wouldn’t want the same. We said we could do anything we wanted. We said no feelings, and you specified this.”
“And you specified we’d tell each other everything… we’ve said so many things, haven’t we?”
Kai rolled his eyes. “One of the rings is for Soobin, you are right about that,” Kai pulled his coat out of Beomgyu’s hand, “but the other one isn’t for me. I wouldn’t put a ring on anyone who isn’t you, and I wouldn’t let anyone but you put a ring on me.”
The younger placed the coat over Beomgyu’s head again, it was wet, but not as wet as both of them were.
“Why are you doing this?”
I know I fucked up the other night.
“All I’ve always wanted was for you to be as happy as you make me, and for the longest time, I felt like I couldn’t make you happy. I didn’t know how to. But every time I saw you and you looked back at me, I thought I wouldn’t know what to do if I were to lose you to someone else. So I kept trying to be good enough, but I’m a coward. You asked me if I loved you and couldn’t say it but the answer was yes. It is always yes.” Kai heaved, trying to gather his mind while the rain continued drenching him. He clenched his hands in fists trying to control his quivering. “I couldn’t open my mouth, and I couldn’t find the courage to say sorry. I’m so scared I’m not going to be able to love you right. But please don’t mistake my quietness for nothingness. I have loved you. I loved you. I love you. I’ll always love you, hyung. I know I should’ve told you but I was so afraid I was not enough. I thought you would notice, I thought my actions were enough for you to notice. I thought so many things and I was wrong.”
Beomgyu shook his head effusively, his hands in fists, an angry smile forming on his lips and his teeth clenched.
“Sorry,” Kai whispered.
“No. No. Do you even know how I felt all these years trying to just forget about it? Thinking you were out there having fun with other people because I was not the one? I just wasn’t the one for you and I kept telling myself that I was fine with this arrangement and that there was no way you didn’t know how I felt; that you would’ve told me if you—If I meant something more than the place you can always come back to.”
Beomgyu’s head fell down slowly as he spoke, and as he spoke, tears fell too. He focused on the ground, on the way the pavement had become darker, with no dry spots, and in the way the rain fell hard on his body, and on how both of these hid all traces from his tears. Then he focused on how fast his heart was beating, and how strongly his body was shaking, from the cold or from this moment, it didn’t matter.
The younger one stood quietly in front of him for some seconds, and then he placed his hands on the sides of Beomgyu’s face to lift it, sweetly, softly, making Beomgyu look him in the eye. He’d not been crying, rather holding the tears back to hide them, but his eyes were as red as the first time Beomgyu had seen him cry. He knew this look.
“You are shaking,” Kai explained in a whisper, “and my hands are warm.”
But Kai only received a tired stare back, so he continued talking. “I know I’ve taken too long, I know that we’re both way older than when we first met, and even if we are supposed to know everything about each other, with no shame, no silliness, nor awkwardness by now… I wanted to make things right somehow, and I figured that I am terrible at that. I wanted to give you more than words because, you’re right, we have said so many things, and I worked on trying other stuff to show you that I do love you and that I can care for you, too, but I’m a coward, and I should’ve been direct about everything instead. I know. I am sorry.”
Beomgyu stared off into the distance, the neverending street, too tired to process anything. His head was a page fully scribbled on, and the few blank spaces were only to fill with something that made sense.
But nothing made sense.
“You’ve been replacing my radio’s batteries, haven’t you? That’s the thing you’ve been doing.”
Kai shrugged his shoulders, “Yeah.”
Beomgyu let out a chuckle of incredulity, then he covered his eyes and started rubbing them, wiping the raindrops off. “You are so stupid, oh god.”
“And I’ve been buying flowers for you but I can’t gather the courage to say they are for you. I thought you’d know because you always put them in water but I am guessing you thought they were for someone else.”
“I thought they were for you, you hand them to me with a pleased smile like, ‘look what I got!’”
“Look what I got for you!” Kai explained, “I also bought macarons because I know how much you like them, but you ate them so angrily I thought I had done something wrong.”
“I need you to start talking to me about trivialities like those. I thought Soobin gave you the sweets!” Beomgyu rolled his eyes, anger was running all through his body. It was anger at Kai, at himself, at all the words left unsaid and all the made up explanations, all the wasted time. “You should’ve fucking told me! I’ve been trying so hard. I’ve been trying so hard to let go of you.”
“I would never want you to go, you know that,” Kai said as he caressed Beomgyu’s cheek.
“You didn’t take an umbrella with you as I told you.”
Kai smiled, “I love you.”
Beomgyu saw him in the eyes, he noticed a thousand fires burning inside them; not the kind Beomgyu was used to seeing when they were alone in the bedroom — the kind that could burn forests, or destroy all life in its way — but the kind that was meant to melt the toughest metals, to give new life to the broken, to keep warm the cold. This ignited some flame in Beomgyu, too, this one he knew well. It came up every time he wanted to remind himself Kai was still nothing more than flesh.
Kai knew.
Beomgyu held him by the nape with one hand and pulled him closer, he kissed him deep and Kai kissed him back, both moving like they had been woven into each other’s clothes, inseparable, seeking some sort of salvation in the other.
At first, the kiss was hurting him, making bigger the fire he felt inside: the one that had driven him to touch Kai like this; which was burning all parts of his body pressed on Kai’s skin. This want was one he had known could only disappear through this kind of pain: the taste of Kai’s mouth, the touch of his skin, and his perfume lingering everywhere despite the rain.
He knew this kind of touch could override his feelings, but this time, the fire started burning differently, and his feelings didn’t cease. Kai was kissing the pain between his lips, loving it and honoring it and taking it away from all of him. The kiss had made him forget about his neck hurting until Kai placed a hand on the exact place to put some pressure, not allowing him to move further.
Kai had always found a way to make him feel so much with so little.
The younger pulled back slowly, panting, and with his forehead resting on the other’s, he said, “I love you, I’m sorry.”
This was a fire Beomgyu had hoped to extinguish for ages hiding under a roof, but fires this big could only disappear under the rain.
Beomgyu held Kai’s hand tightly without looking at him. How was he to explain what had just happened? Shamefully, he picked up the fallen coat, and they started walking until they were standing under the small outer ceiling of a closed restaurant. He started talking then.
“They sell the best honey rice cakes you’ll ever try,” Beomgyu started talking, not letting go of the younger’s hand or allowing the coat to fall off his head. He sighed, “Before I left, I used to stand here whenever it rained. After work, I never made it home in time, so I would stand and watch and wonder what I could do to help my parents, and myself at the same time, live the life I wanted. The day I left, I stood here for a while before getting home, thinking about how much my life and I would change, or about how my parents wouldn’t talk to me after leaving. I had a letter ready and I never gave it to them, I just expected them to understand. We are expected to instantly understand the people we love, without talking, every time. I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Sometimes it feels like proof of my love, if I understand, if I let it go. I used to like that I could tell how you felt when you were sad, or when you were angry and you knew that about me, too. Neither of us had to explain anything and that was perfect. But I still knew people weren’t that easy. When you said that we should explicitly say everything, it felt new, like that was something I had been missing my whole life and you were offering it to me on a golden plate. I guess I couldn’t do it because I didn’t know how. I still thought I was expected to understand who you were, what your job was and what you wanted from me and all else. And that felt… safe, just understanding, not discussing. But I’ve always known safe doesn’t mean good.”
“But sometimes it does,” Kai said, quietly, “Hey, I know we have been through stuff, different stuff in our lives, and I know it’s been hard sometimes, but I want to try. I want to be better, and I want to be better with you, for us. I love you. I feel safe with you. I want to know whenever I don’t feel safe for you. You are not the person I can come back to, you are the person I want to be with.”
Beomgyu felt like crying. Love was easy, people were not.
Two people meeting each other and working out perfectly fine, Beomgyu didn’t believe in this, even if he wanted to. Loving people right didn’t just happen — not for everyone, not for him —, loving people right came with practice. Love meant effort, knowledge, care, and respect for the person one loves. Love meant I see you, I hear you, and I let you know, too. Love didn’t hurt, people did, our own selves did, too, not knowing how to love those we love.
Here was Kai, once again, offering him everything Beomgyu wanted. Here was Kai, like the rain bringing life back. Telling them he was willing to fall softer and learn to love him better.
“I love you,” Beomgyu said, finally.
It came out naturally out of his mouth, a simple breath, like wind, like sunlight. It was the small hole carved between the clouds that allowed the sun to come through. And the air was warm when Kai kissed him, when his hands caressed his face, easing the wet hair aside. It was warm and Beomgyu had stood in this place enough times in his life to know that the warmth was thanks to Kai beside him, loving him.
Love meant you can rest, too.
The sky falling in chunks, the water running cold, and the wind blowing the trees seemed so unimportant for the first time in years, and Kai kissing him, touching him, pulling him closer, was all that mattered.
The way home was rather quiet, but Beomgyu didn’t let go of Kai’s hand. The sun had gone down by the time they walked inside the house. Beomgyu’s mother panicked and brought them warm soup, his father prepared the shower and got them all the towels available. They all laughed at the story Beomgyu had made up about how they met up: Kai had called saying he had forgotten some papers, and Beomgyu was trying to take them to him but with the wind, they flew and while Beomgyu tried to gather all of them up, it started raining. Kai found him on the street, incredibly sad, and they hid until the rain ceased.
They left Daegu the next day. Beomgyu’s mom cried, and his father let a few tears fall. He hugged Beomgyu and he said, “I love you,” with a broken voice, and it felt like Beomgyu had been finally fully welcomed back, everyone cried a little. There were other things that terrified him, though, that he’d have to explain to them one day — his relationship with Kai — but for now, he wanted to live in this calmness.
This was the thing about the rainy season: one day, every year, it simply stopped. It ended just the way it started, and even though it almost felt sudden; the ones who paid attention to it, could hear it saying goodbye.
•
The rainy season could bring all sorts of changes into people’s lives, some too good to ignore or too bad to bear, but if you could get through it, there was a sparkle of hope. The world always felt kinder after a bit of rain.
At some point, life also started feeling like a morning after a night of rain, fresh and hopeful.
During their first year it started to slowly sink in that they didn’t have to hide or love on their own. Kai, even if shyly, showered Beomgyu in gifts — flowers, sweets, but one of the most important was a braided thin silver ring, which he did not ever take off —, in breakfast to bed and random visits to his office, even random piano serenades at midnight. Kai was the most embarrassing romantic ever now that he felt secure enough to not be subtle but rather bold with all things he always wanted to do for Beomgyu; and Beomgyu loved this because he could also indulge in being a whole embarrassingly in love adult, use sweet nicknames and write funny romance letters and be able to tell Kai, “I love you,” every day without feeling his heart in his throat. Love was easy, overflowing.
It took no time for Beomgyu and Soobin to become friends, Soobin made sure to gossip with Beomgyu about everything Kai had ever said of him. This was possible because Soobin did not get married, so he mourned it at their house during lunch time. He explained something along the lines of the man he loved not wanting to run away with him. Kai became friends with Taehyun, too, it wasn’t all that easy for Taehyun, but he was compelling enough to never run out of topics to talk about, and Kai would try following along.
Kai became closer with Beomgyu’s parents too, quietly like he knew best, weaving his way into their ways. The trips to Daegu had become more regular even if Kai couldn’t go everytime. Beomgyu never took off his ring to meet them, he wore it purposefully on his ring finger, and later when his parents asked him what it was for, Beomgyu simply responded it was something like a promise ring. His parents scoffed, but didn’t ask anything more, not wanting to hear the answer they already knew would come.
His relationship with Kai wasn’t one easy to hide, and his parents weren’t oblivious. Beomgyu knew their ideals weren’t compatible, but he still felt loved whenever he came to spend time with them, so he didn’t complain. For some people, not everything was to be spoken; Beomgyu had learned that his parents were part of those people.
The next year, after many accommodations, they were finally able to travel to Hawaii. Kai rented a small house by the sea that Beomgyu had mentioned liking. It had wooden walls and big windows that allowed daylight to enter. Days were wonderful with the sound of the waves crashing, and sunsets were magical with the view of the sky burning in orange and pink hues, showering the rooms in warm light. Some nights, it rained really softly. Lately, their schedule was simply to drown in tranquility.
“I love this,” Beomgyu said, opening the glass door. “Isn’t it nice?”
“The view?” Kai asked from behind.
Beomgyu started walking outside, quietly, until reaching the coast so the waves could barely reach him. Through the corner of his eye, he could see Kai was now standing there too, looking at the horizon beside him.
“I don’t mean just the view.”
“What then, love?”
Kai slipped his hand to touch Beomgyu’s, and tangled their fingers. The air was warm already, but this had made it sweet too. All of a sudden, the salt in the air was no contender, and Beomgyu’s heart felt immensely content in this exact moment. The ripple in a calm pond, or the last drop in a glass full, or the first storm of the year weren’t always bad, a disturbance wasn’t a disaster every time. In this moment, it was complete joy.
There was a tear in Beomgyu’s eye when he turned to look at Kai, and as his eyes scanned Kai’s face and his thumb caressed Kai’s hand, this joy wanted to burst. “Everything. I love everything. I’m so happy you are here.”
“Hey, hey, no tears yet.”
Beomgyu smiled, “What do you mean not yet?”
Kai dived into his pocket and pulled out a small black box, and involuntarily, Beomgyu’s hands covered his mouth.
“Oh my god, Huening Kai Kamal.”
“Choi Beomgyu!!!” Kai said loudly, with the biggest smile and the brightest eyes Beomgyu had ever seen. Then he kneeled, and he opened the box, revealing two very shiny silver rings. “You are the most wonderful person I have ever known, and I am glad we’ve spent the last eleven years of our lives together. I don’t know what would be of me without you. I love you every day, I will choose us every day from now on. And I would love to know if you too want to spend the rest of your life with me by your side.”
“Are you asking me to marry you?”
Kai closed his eyes and chuckled softly, “Yes, will you marry me?”
“Yes,” Beomgyu kneeled too, and he held Kai’s face between his hands before kissing him. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Kai took out one of the rings and Beomgyu allowed him to put it on his finger. It was so careful Beomgyu wanted to put it on himself, but he understood as he put the other on Kai’s finger. This was a promise, a very carefully done and important promise for both of them.
I’ll love you my whole life. I want it. I mean it.
Beomgyu threw his arms around Kai, he hugged him so tightly they fell on the sand. Kai under him, moved Beomgyu’s face closer and kissed him sweetly. They kissed slowly, like they had a lifetime to do it, and because right now, this moment with the sun about to hide in the horizon, and the warm sand embracing them, was all that mattered.
They relaxed, Beomgyu allowed his weight to fall on Kai’s chest as the younger caressed his hair and touched his cheek lovingly. When a wave caught up to them and the entirety of Kai’s back was wet, Kai suddenly grabbed Beomgyu and switched their places.
“Kai, no!”
Beomgyu opened his eyes really wide, and Kai kissed him. Eyes closed shut now, and mouth busy, he felt the water touching his body. But the water went unperceived when Kai placed a hand on his waist and the heat weaved its way through his body. His hands ran across Kai’s hips, then his waist, then his chest, really slowly reaching his neck and hanging there to push him closer, deepening the kiss, feel him all over. Kai tried not to let his entire weight fall on him, but Beomgyu wanted it regardless.
Then Kai kissed his neck, and moved his hips so painfully slowly, Beomgyu heaved, “We are too grown for this.”
Kai separated and hovered over him with a smirk. He looked at Beomgyu lovingly for a whole second, and then he replied. “We are not. I hate waiting but I’ll do it because I reserved a table at a very nice restaurant.”
He left a quick kiss.
The sun was almost entirely hidden now so the sky had become a deep blue. They stood up and walked toward the sea, hand in hand, fingers intertwined until they started slowly getting into the water, and splashed the other playfully; eventually submerging completely just to emerge and catch the other again.
The sea was all welcoming and loving.
This was all Beomgyu knew now. Somewhere in the world, rain may have drowned a thousand flowers, but a thousand more may bloom beautifully after it.