Archive of Our Own

I'll never forget
The first time I saw you then
Primrose at three
You had all of me
Without saying a word

- While you were sleeping, Laufey.

Soobin is burning a hole in the textbook he's reading. Understanding the present usually involves some grasp of its past. The first line of the first unit of his history class that he's taking, and to say he is taking it is generous in itself. He hasn't attended a single one this week.

He's been training for the past months, and it's awful. He's slow, much slower than the other trainees, younger, newer, trips over his words and his steps when their instructor glares at him from across the room.

But Soobin is trying, he tells that to his mother when she calls him worried sick, telling him to come back if it gets too much. That she'll love him even if he changed paths now. That he's young. He has the rest of the world to see even if he doesn't debut.

But Soobin feels old, spilling everything from his too big body and smaller than ever with everyone else in the room. Thoughts too big for even him to comprehend sometimes.

The nib of his pen pressed against the paper bleeds ink through it, and no words are actually making sense to Soobin right now. He shuts his book like it personally offended him and looks at his notebook, half hearted rap lyrics scribbled on them.

He's awful at rap. Last month his instructor had told him his raps sound like extempore poetry instead, and Soobin didn't have the heart to tell him he doesn't know how to make words that rhyme sound less….. poetic. It just happens. He's not aiming to become a rapper but that point cannot be gotten across this early in his trainee stages. Everyone's extremely expendable. Soobin one of the most.

"Soobin-hyung."

Kai is someone he met like three months ago, but he swears it could've been longer with the way Kai wraps his arms around Soobin now. "I can't do this. Why am I still studying for school?" The younger boy rubs his face into Soobin's shoulder, whining. "I'm here to be an idol."

Soobin scoffs, but there's a smile on his face and he doesn't push Kai off. He's so young, Kai. When he joined the company Soobin couldn't properly wrap his head around how small Kai looked. The older trainees scared even Soobin sometimes, he couldn't imagine being Kai. So Soobin decided to look out for him, and they're here now.

Fussing over school together.

"Let's just do one page each, then we can go have tteokbokki." Soobin bargains. More with himself than with Kai.

Kai nods eagerly and pours over his own open homework, tapping at the table with the back of his pen. Fussing under his breath at some particularly difficult problem on the worksheet.

Kai finishes his worksheet, Soobin pretends to at least look like he's absorbing any of the content he's trying to read. After they're done, they throw their coats on and walk outside the dorm, the air smelling significantly cleaner. Living with countless young boys is not easy.

At the stall they get tteokbokki from, the lady greets them with recognition, hands them both a plate each. They stand at the side of the road and eat, the steam fogging Soobin's glasses up. It's getting so much colder now and he already misses home. Misses his mom's soup, his room, sleeping in a bed instead of a dingy mattress alongside the trainee that famously snores the loudest. Misses his dad's warm car. Misses even his brother's constant bothering.

Kai eats up his portion embarrassingly fast and looks at Soobin's half eaten one with the face of a kicked puppy. Soobin huffs and just hands him the plate, and Kai doesn't even refuse out of principle, just digs into it. It seems like the boy is always hungry. Soobin doesn't really mind, it's impossible to be mad at Kai. Even slightly.

"Did you see the new trainee?"

Soobin pauses. "What new trainees?" They had said there will be no new trainees. That the debut group will be decided from amongst the existing ones.

"A new trainee. One." Kai chews loudly and Soobin makes a face. "I saw the instructor talk to him. In the hallway."

"A new trainee? At this stage?" He wipes his glasses on a tissue. "You must have heard wrong, Kai-yah. Instructor said there will be no new trainees now."

Kai twists his mouth, "But there is. Taehyun even went to say hi to him." Taehyun is one the boys that joined around Soobin did, and despite being Kai's age he's impossibly more collected than anyone else in his age group here. It's good to see him and Kai get close, even if Soobin dreads the thought that Kai might abandon him, leaving Soobin to square one in terms of having friends. He hated eating alone.

The first few weeks he was here, he hardly had lunch. From what meager portions they are given, his stomach never felt quite full, and nine out of ten times the servings were gone before you can even make it to the center of it all. Soobin didn't have anyone who'd save a plate for him, until Kai showed up. Then Kai — somehow even more awkward than Soobin — followed him around everywhere and Soobin tried to act annoyed until he wasn't. Somewhere in all of Kai's jittery mannerism and over-clinginess Soobin was impossibly grateful.

Kai bundles up his tissues and throws them in the trash along with their paper plates. Soobin pays the lady and they both rush back to the dorm building and as soon as the stale air of their rooms hits his nose, Soobin thinks with childish resentment, I hate this place.

The next day, Soobin enters the practice room groggy and incoherent. Which is basically his usual. There are a few of the older boys stretching, already getting into the groove of it while looking like they are actually even enjoying this. The idea of morning practice being anything more than a chore and a headache is beyond Soobin.

He didn't sleep well last night, despite his obnoxiously loudly snoring trainee being absent on a sick leave. Soobin feels like he won't be coming back. Soobin had helplessly watched — or heard, more like — him sob into his pillow more times than he can count, especially after their instructor had probably had a rough day and the slower trainees had got the brunt of his pent up anger. Half the times, Soobin was among them. Soobin tried not to dwell on it. It is better to treat the idea of giving up and leaving as an unattainable fantasy than an actual choice he can make.

He's not exactly stuck here yet, but in his head this is it. He wants to debut, he wants to debut from here. The thought of moving to another company and starting again haunts him.

His eyes find Kai across the room, back against the wall and a water bottle in his hand, he's talking to another trainee and when the said boy tips his head back to laugh, Soobin finds it is Taehyun. Something washes over Soobin at that moment. Typically, whenever Kai would be talking to any other of their fellows Soobin would just hover around until Kai gives up on the conversation and entertains him instead. And Kai would do the same when Soobin was catching up with any of the other boys. Right now, Soobin doesn't walk up to him.

Taehyun is good. He's Kai's age, they have the same kind of underlying stability even though it manifests in Taehyun differently than it does with Kai. They click. He watches them, standing next to the door as it creaks and slams as more and more trainees come in and go out.

He's not jealous or anything even close to it. Matter of fact, he's happy. Kai deserves more friends. More people he can rely on. People who are more sure of themselves, more steady on their feet. Friends who'd tell him how it will be okay when Kai becomes too self conscious to even peek his face out of the blanket instead of standing there and telling him I feel the same. Soobin is none of that, despite Kai's constant reassurances that he's doing good. Kai deserves someone like Taehyun, a pole to lean his weight on instead of a mirror.

Soobin goes to the table and puts his water bottle among the countless others. He should name tag it before the inevitable mishap of someone taking his happens. He keeps saying he'll recognise it without one, it's all denty from the bottom from falling here and there and everywhere all the time. Kai laughs at his clumsiness sometimes.

When he sets it down, the bottle wobbles and before he can stop it all from happening, it falls and tips the one next to it over and then the next, and the domino effect occurs cartoonishly before the last one falls off the edge of the table.

"Ow!"

Apology on the tip of his tongue, Soobin rushes to the other side of the table where the bottle had fallen and knocked his knees right onto someone's forehead.

"Ow!!"

There's a boy sitting huddled next to the legs of the table, back against the mirror even though they are pointedly told not to sit like that lest the mirror gets dirty. He's looking up at Soobin with an unimpressed expression and the offending water bottle clutched in his hand. "This dropped right on my head." The bottle is extended towards him.

For a moment Soobin just stands there. Watches the boy look from irritated to confused to intrigued the longer Soobin doesn't reply. At last, the boy hesitantly tugs at Soobin's pants. "Hello?" The boy snaps his fingers, and Soobin's eyes focus again.

The new trainee.

"Hello," Soobin says back to him and takes the bottle, gingerly sets it on the farther end of the tabletop.

When the boy stands up to fully face Soobin, the first thing Soobin notices is that he's handsome. Beautiful, even, extraordinarily so. Eyes round and shy but slightly mischievous, pouty lips. Not taller than Soobin, but still tall by general standards.

"Hello," the boy says again and Soobin thinks they both must sound stupid, parroting hello, hello back and forth. "I feel like you are not going to apologise for hitting my head with a bottle or introduce yourself," a random bottle is picked up from the table and put in Soobin's face like a hand-puppet as the boy speaks in an animated voice, "I'm sorry, Beomgyu-ssi, for hitting your head." Then the the bottle is turned to the boy's — Beomgyu, apparently — face instead and the cartoonish voice is dropped. "It's okay, it didn't even hurt that much!"

Soobin watches the whole thing unfold in utter amusement because — what the fuck? Who on earth talks like that?

"Beomgyu," Soobin repeats his name and then proceeds to break into a laugh.

Beomgyu, seemingly impressed at having done so, laughs too. When the laughter dies down, Soobin clutching his chest and feels the tension he has been carrying all morning melt into relief, from what he doesn't know.

"I'm Soobin." He says finally, and because it is only now has he gotten to his senses, "I'm sorry for the- yeah." He gestures vaguely upon the offending pile of knocked over bottles.

They sit next to each other and Soobin looks at the wall-mounted clock. 30 minutes before their instructor arrives.

"Where are you from?" Beomgyu asks.

"Ansan, you?"

"Daegu." At Soobin opening his mouth to say something, Beomgyu holds up his finger. "Yes, I have a dialect. You would have been only the 10th person to point it out today."

Soobin wasn't going to comment on the dialect, despite it being the first thing he noticed. Perhaps it's something Beomgyu is sensitive about, but Soobin finds it cute. Everything in here is so Seoul-like, and even though Soobin visited Seoul a lot as a kid it was never home and it isn't home now. It feels sterile, foreign and he misses the boring streets of his home's neighbourhood that he endlessly complained about. Beomgyu speaks akin to the the people of a place Soobin hasn't ever been to, but the foreignness of it isn't like the unfamiliarity of Seoul.

At a lack of things to say, Soobin digs into his bag for his notebook and turns the page to his haphazardly finished rap segment they have to perform this week. Beomgyu eyes it curiously.

"What's that?" he points at the page and it occurs to Soobin that maybe he should not show this to another trainee, quarrels and fights over stolen lyrics and copied dance moves are more common than Soobin could have anticipated. But Beomgyu looks genuinely curious and it is not Soobin to assume the worst of people ten minutes after they just met.

"I didn't know that," Beomgyu looks like he's thinking about something. "They didn't really tell me much about anything. Just the time-table."

Soobin would know. His first week here was akin to hell. He didn't know anything, was late to half the schedules and didn't catch on so many tasks that his instructor had sided him one day and have him a stern lecture about how easily he can be replaced.

"They don't. You kind of are expected to just catch on eventually." He tells Beomgyu who hums. He looks a little upset now, lower lip jutted out a little and Soobin wonders if he said something wrong.

It's only now that he notices that Kai is watching him from across the room, a strange expression on his face, like a half-smile but not quite. Taehyun no longer by his side.

The instructor arrives and they all assemble together, Kai by his side again and he's fussing and complaining and commenting on everything in hushed tones in between breaks.

He doesn't talk to Beomgyu again that day, but he's going to be there in his peripheral vision for days to come, when his name is called out or he's talking with another trainee or shyly asking a question to the instructors.

And Soobin watches this boy, everyday, and tells himself he's only just intrigued.

Okay, maybe Soobin is a little more than intrigued by Beomgyu. He's fucking amused, all the time. Because Beomgyu is interesting. Soobin has been here for almost the whole year and Beomgyu only a week, and he interests Soobin more than anything else in the building.

It is just the way he talks with everyone, animated hand gestures everywhere whenever he's explaining something passionately, and the way he has telltale signs when he's preparing to approach a fellow trainee. He'd fumble around with his own hands and sometimes with an object and waits for that someone to finish their work and it reminds Soobin of mannerism akin to a puppy.

Sometimes, the other would laugh, like now as Soobin watched Beomgyu converse with one of the younger boys over plates of black bean noodles. The boy — Jinseok — giggles around his bite while Beomgyu makes a face that Soobin has come to know as his I'm proud and aware of the fact that I'm funny.

Soobin gets hit with a feeling of missing out on a conversation he has no part in.

"Dude, will you stop?"

Soobin tears his gaze away from Beomgyu who's taken to eating alone now. Jinseok has been pulled away by an exceptionally loud gargle of boys who Soobin supposes are his friends.

Kai waves his chopsticks in front of him and then points one straight into Beomgyu's direction. "Why are you staring?"

"I wasn't staring." Soobin counters and feels his cheeks heat for no reason.

Kai looks unimpressed. "You were definitely staring."

Soobin's poor brain hardly processes anything before he declared the first lie he has told Kai ever since they met. "Who would I even stare at?"

Somehow, Kai's face contorts from his momentary confusion to amusement, which is no good news for Soobin. "Do you think I didn't notice? You have been staring at the new trainee all week. Taehyun even asked me if you guys are in a fight or something."

Soobin gapes at Kai. Staring at Beomgyu is nothing new. Because Soobin stares at everything. The mortifying ordeal of asking questions from strangers is way more terrifying than just… observing them and digging for his own answers.

"I'm not staring." Soobin repeats for good measure at Kai's expectant expression. "He's just new. I'm looking out for him."

Kai snorts. "Great help you're being there, he must be very grateful."

It's not often Kai speaks like this — full of sarcasm even though his face is split in a grin and eyes soft. They jab at each other but it is never aimed to sting. Even when Kai is trying to rile Soobin up, what Soobin feels is a deep affection. A strange mix, between fraternal and maternal.

Kai is looking at Beomgyu now, who has finished his plate and is scrolling on his phone in the last few minutes left of their break. "We could talk to him. I mean, it has been the two of us for months and he always eats alone anyway."

Beomgyu — in the past week that Soobin has been observing him — has only talked repeatedly with none of the people here. He talks to everyone, but the conversations are fleeting, and last only until the other party finds something more interesting than Beomgyu. Something to which Soobin cannot relate.

He then thinks of himself and Kai and Beomgyu with them, and it's not an unpleasant image. He's pretty sure Kai would be more than happy to have someone hang around with them.

But the images that are forming are distorted, a strange mix of scenarios where one of the other is missing. A messed up equation: Soobin hanging out with Kai is not the same as if Beomgyu hangs out with Soobin, and the way Soobin talks to Kai is not how he would talk to Beomgyu.

Has he been imagining himself talking to Beomgyu?

"If you are bored of me already, just tell me to fuck off." He tells Kai at last who in response does awful forms of aegyo that hover around the lines of Soobin hyung likes me so much.

When Soobin was 13, his parents sent him to a teen recreational camp.

Why he was being sent was beyond him; perhaps his mother was sick of him being stuck at home all day the previous summer, or perhaps he had been falling behind kids his age in her eyes.

The camp was set at a lakeside not too far from Ansan, a week of what he was told would be good for him to spread his wings.

On the first day, he didn’t talk to anyone.

On the second day, he gave a half-hearted introductory speech about what he liked and disliked, around kids who looked bored out of their wits as they sat around the bonfire.

On the third day, he met Minjeong.

Minjeong was two years older than him and quite popular with the camp mentors. Popular in the sense that Soobin had heard of her on the first day at camp as one of those kids he should stay cautious of. She told him she liked League of Legends, and that was the start of an hour-long discussion about made-up politics in Runeterra.

They sat together for lunch every day at camp, and it made the otherwise unbearable misery of this—in his mother’s words—life-changing experience tolerable.

Minjeong had laughed awfully loud when Soobin had told her that.

“Spread your wings where?” she had said over a game of UNO, late at night, when they had sneaked out to sit on empty lakeside benches. “This lake looks like it’s a few years away from becoming a public sewer. I mean—look at the state of this place.” She had kicked a pebble, and it went rolling down the shore to drop unceremoniously into the lake. “Does anyone even clean this? Do lakes need to be cleaned manually?”

Soobin didn’t know if lakes needed to be cleaned by people, but he had laughed because everything Minjeong said was funny on some level.

She was older, with cool hair and good music and endless stories from her hometown.

Soobin often found himself wondering, in between lunch and games and morning exercises he dreaded, what it was about Minjeong that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He thought hard about why she chose to stick around with him when there were so many other cooler, older kids.

Over the next two weeks of camp, she became the blueprint for Soobin’s antics. Minjeong liked KARA, so Soobin liked KARA, and they spent hours recreating choreography from their favourite songs. Minjeong liked Reply 1988, so Soobin watched Reply 1988 on his phone at night at the lowest possible volume so he could gossip about the evil characters the next day. Everything Minjeong liked, Soobin liked too.

Soobin liked Minjeong. It was easy and obvious—clear as day. None of his friends back in Ansan were like her, and Soobin found that around her, he was the most himself too.

“Dude, you like her,” his roommate—a tall, lanky boy about his age with glasses that made his eyes look funny—told him one night.

Soobin tilted his head. “Yes, I do like her.” It was the simplest thing to admit.

His roommate shook his head in response, sounding a little disappointed and making Soobin wonder if he had said something wrong. He had always treated Minjeong with more respect than any of the other teenage boys had, in the name of a strange rebellion Soobin didn’t really understand. “Soobin,” the other boy replied in a slightly condescending tone. “You’re so oblivious. You like like her.”

“What?”

From his limited knowledge of romance—precisely derived from anime—Soobin knew he should have been flustered at this sort of accusation. But mostly, what he felt was confusion. Did he like Minjeong? Of course. Did he…

That sort of thought had never occurred to him.

When he told his roommate as much, the boy just patted Soobin’s shoulder and said, “Nobody does. You’re such a dummy! She’s obviously into you.” The boy made a weird face and looked Soobin up and down. “Don’t know how you managed that, but… you should tell her. These sorts of things aren’t revelations. You need to read between the lines.”

That night, awake well past midnight—which was becoming a regular thing now, so much for fixing his schedule—Soobin tried to imagine it. Did he like Minjeong? Well, yes. But it wasn’t any more complicated than that. He liked Minjeong; she was his only friend in this stupid place. There wasn’t much he realised there was to it beyond that.

His roommate had said it wouldn’t come to him like a grand revelation.

Before he could chicken out, he picked up his phone and sent two texts.

You
noona
i have to ask you something

Minjeong-noona
Sure
Come up to the usual spot

It was easy to sneak past his roommate, who slept like a log. It wasn’t very easy to sneak past whichever mentor was on night surveillance, but Soobin managed. He found Minjeong on the bench they had deemed the spot: a secluded clearing of trees behind overgrown bushes where the lake’s shore bled into soil.

Soobin sat next to her open can of soda. It was damp with condensation, and Minjeong stared at it dejectedly for a moment before looking at him. “So, what’s up?”

It was better to get it over with, Soobin thought, and in one burst of breath he blurted out, “Noona, I like you.”

The world didn’t stop. His heart didn’t beat any faster than usual. Even Minjeong didn’t look very stunned or flustered when Soobin dared to look at her.

“Is this some stupid dare you and your friends came up with?” she asked, unimpressed.

Somehow, this was the thing that got a genuine reaction out of Soobin. “No!” he whisper-shouted, feeling oddly defensive at the accusation, even though he knew he probably would never have thought to have this conversation with Minjeong if his roommate hadn’t convinced him.

He wondered if he had disappointed Minjeong, bringing this up when they had been so good with each other all this time. “I’m sorry,” the apology slipped out like a reflex. He didn’t know what it was for exactly. He wanted to run away, or tell Minjeong he’d been possessed and hadn’t meant anything, but that would have been rude too.

Because he did like Minjeong. But he didn’t want to kiss her or hold her hand all the time—even if he had held her hand before. Sitting there, Minjeong looked impossibly older than him, and the way she twisted her mouth in mild amusement made him less jittery.

She placed her half-finished soda can on his knee, and it stopped bouncing. Soobin looked at it, subconsciously balancing it as it swayed with the wind. Minjeong cleared her throat. “Relax. I’m not mad at you.”

“You kids are crazy. Two weeks with me and you’re already fantasizing about me? Scandalous.” She laughed at the end of the sentence.

Soobin flushed—not because he was flustered or even minutely happy about Minjeong’s teasing take on this self-inflicted humiliation ritual, but because he was genuinely mortified. He got the urge to apologise again, but she cut him off.

“And even if you do have a crush on me—which I’m pretty sure you don’t—it’s better you get over it.”

“Why?” he found himself asking, genuinely curious.

Minjeong looked down at the fallen leaves from the unkempt bushes at their feet. She swallowed, and this might have been the first time Soobin had seen her nervous or hesitant. “I, uh…” She avoided his gaze and studied a far-off lamppost Soobin could barely see without his glasses. “I am seeing someone.”

Oh. Soobin hadn’t expected that, but it didn’t come as much of a surprise either. Minjeong was pretty and funny, and he could imagine someone liking her that way. “Is he from the camp?” he asked, and she looked at him pointedly before shaking her head.

“Back home,” she clarified. There was a slight downward lilt to her tone. She stared at the flickering light on the lamppost, a bit wistful. “He—” She took a deep breath, then looked straight at Soobin, and he fixed his slouch.

“She’s back home. I hope to see her soon.”

She kept looking at him, and Soobin felt itchy under the sudden scrutiny, shaking one leg and then the other. He wasn’t really surprised. He knew about it. He’d seen it in anime before, in foreign music videos and movies. He didn’t really understand why Minjeong was sharing it like it was a secret to be kept—but if that was what she wanted, he could keep it. As many secrets as Minjeong allowed him to keep.

He shifted closer to her, the empty soda can now on the ground. “I hope you see her soon too.” It was the best he could say, because Minjeong looked sad thinking of her… girlfriend. “I really do.”

Minjeong smiled then, and so did Soobin. They sat out there for another hour, listening to whatever songs the scratchy internet service allowed, before heading back to their respective cabins.

Nothing changed. The rest of camp passed in the same uneventful bullshit he hated, with Minjeong making it bearable.

She left a day earlier than him, with her number in his pocket and a promise to visit him in Ansan so he could show her around.

A year later, her number went out of service, and he realised—listening to KARA in his boring neighbourhood's park—that he had never really asked which town she had come from.

They were sitting on one of those long couches at the company building. The kind that look way more comfortable than they actually are. Soobin half-sighed, half-groaned.

The other three boys sitting with him, equally anxious and waiting for their turns on their weekly individual evaluations, look at him. Beomgyu is the last in line next to him with his notebook open on his lap and he's murmuring the lyrics again and again, much to Soobin's dismay. At this point, Soobin might forget his own segment and end up doing Beomgyu's instead.

Yeonjun comes out of the room with two other trainees, looking content with himself but he's holding the other boy's shoulder, talking about something as he walks past Soobin's lot. Soobin watches him go and then stands up, tosses his sheet of lyrics in the bin before he walks past the open door to their evaluators.

It goes okay. Soobin tries not to think about his evaluations once they're over, or at least that's what he tries to do. He abhors how their main instructor's face is devoid of any and all emotions through it, nothing for Soobin to work on as he recited his rap lyrics with his best semblance of keeping a flow.

Beomgyu's was way better than his. Soobin was oddly impressed, knowing that only two weeks ago Beomgyu wasn't even aware of these evaluations in the first place.

They flop back down on the couch as the next group goes in, Soobin shooting Kai two thumbs up and a big grin as the younger boy walks with his shoulders hunched. There's no point in worrying for Kai. Soobin just hopes his goes well, too.

Next to him, Beomgyu throws his head back, opens his legs and lets them rest like that, hands on his lap— the epitome of exhaustion, in Soobin's eyes.

"I need a nap," Beomgyu says, eyes closed.

Soobin looks behind himself, but Beomgyu's words are directed to him. They haven't talked much past the water bottle accident and then fleeting conversations here and there between breaks. "Is it okay to sleep here?” Soobin asked, having a look behind his shoulder as if they were students sneaking out of class and a teacher was right behind them about to clear her throat.

“Probably not, but,” Beomgyu shrugged, then, taking a deep breath. Soobin was pretty sure the conversation was over.

He remained by Beomgyu's side, not sure why, really; he scrolled on his phone, tried to laugh as quietly as he could to whatever funny video showed up on his feed. He got bored of that quickly though, and the clock on the wall told him they had another thirty or so minutes before the rest of the boys were done with their evaluations, too.

Almost against his will though, his eyes kept drifting back to Beomgyu—eyes closed, so it wasn't like he will be caught staring—arms folded behind his neck and his chest rising and falling steadily. Beomgyu's lashes are so long, resting on his cheeks where his eyes are shut, and Soobin finds himself getting lulled, too. Feels amazed at the ease with which Beomgyu managed to fall asleep, perhaps even a little jealous.

His notebook is lying on his lap, and Soobin marvels at the state of it. It looks overflowing with more loose pages stuck between it than the filled ones attached to it. Several colors, sticky notes, folded papers. Doodles. Many of them, from what Soobin can see.

He gets curious, wonders if he can pull one out and see what Beomgyu's been drawing. But that's a huge invasion of privacy, and Soobin isn't even friends with Beomgyu. He could ask Beomgyu to show it to him. But Beomgyu could decline and then Soobin would have to pray that the world ends here and put him out of his misery.

Somehow he has upset himself now, just sitting here and watching Beomgyu breathe softly. He feels passive and there's an itch under his skin, he wants to do. Something. Wake Beomgyu up and tell him this is no place to fall asleep. Their instructor would be so mad.

Beomgyu jolts awake and Soobin doesn't even get the time to look away. He looks around, at the last two groups yet to go in. Relaxes a little but he sits straighter. Then at Soobin, breaking into a smile.

He has pretty teeth. Symmetrical.

"You wanna get ice cream?" Beomgyu proposes.

Right now? They aren't even allowed. Or are they? Soobin doesn't remember. They surely aren't allowed to leave company premises right now.

Beomgyu holds his notebook between his arms and stands up, looking at Soobin expectantly.

Soobin half-rises, then stops. "Wait.

"We should—" he gestures vaguely towards the closed door of their practice room, voices muffled inside. "We should tell them. Ask."

Beomgyu stares at him for a moment, then laughs softly. "You're one of those."

Soobin's ears burn. "It's just-" he pauses. Looks at the six boys in front of him still reading their lyrics. It should take about twenty or so more minutes for the evaluations to be over. They can go and come back before that. Easily.

Soobin hesitates for half a second—long enough to feel himself hesitate—then follows.

They leave the building together, the afternoon air still cooler than Soobin expects. Beomgyu walks ahead at first, then slows down when he realizes Soobin isn’t next to him.

The store is two streets down, the one where the ahjumma is nice enough to let them eat their shares in the store itself instead of outside in the cold air. The flickering fluorescent lighting makes everything look a little sick. Beomgyu crouches in front of the freezer and squints at the options.

“Pick for me,” he says suddenly, glancing back.

Soobin blinks. “What?”

“Whatever you think I'd like.” Beomgyu stands up and brushes at his knees, "I'm putting my trust in you."

That seems like a lot for ice cream. Soobin stares at the freezer. Too many options and he finds himself hesitating. Doesn't want Beomgyu to remember him as the guy with awful taste in ice creams. Soobin steps closer, squats in front of the freezer, the cold seeping through the thin fabric of his pants.

At last he picks for Beomgyu what he picks for himself, the safest choice in the rows, the ones with a chocolate coating over a vanilla bar. Beomgyu hums and Soobin tries to gauge it for disappointment, or interest but comes empty handed.

Beomgyu pays for both of them despite Soobin's half hearted protests. They sit on the low stools by the window. It's no longer sunny in a way that spills inside the shops with the November sunlight already weak to start with.

Beomgyu unwraps his ice cream and simply takes a bite out of it. Soobin's teeth tingle at the sight. Beomgyu seems content with the flavor and Soobin relaxes, unknowingly conscious if his choice was approved. He then unwraps his own.

He likes ice cream more in the colder months. He can eat it for as long as he wants without it getting sticky on his hands. Beside him, Beomgyu's already eaten through half of his own. Soobin watches the boy's profile. It's different up close now that Beomgyu is awake instead of asleep on the company couch earlier. But from here, sitting next to him in the shop's awful lighting, his piercings look a little red and irritated. His slope of his nose soft, lips naturally full. Tongue poking out to hastily lick at the bar where it's melting.

Soobin looks away.

He shakes his leg, there's coldness in his hands that numbs them and heat on the back of his neck. It's stupid. Beside him, Beomgyu shifts and their shoulders brush, something unexpected twisting just under Soobin's ribs. Like an annoying needle he wants to pick out.

Beomgyu has finished his ice cream and is now looking at Soobin. Beomgyu’s smiling to him, eyes half-lidded, like he’s entirely unbothered by the world or the rules they bent to be here. "You're a slow eater." He points out, points at Soobin's melting ice cream bar.

"Yeah," Soobin answers. He's not. A slow eater. But he doesn't want to negate Beomgyu, who looks sheepish with his observation, perhaps even fond. Wishful thinking.

Soobin presses his knees together, grounding himself and stares at the melting ice cream before it can drip onto his fingers. Which it does anyway. He tells himself it's nothing. Fatigue. The evaluation. The cold and the stickiness on his fingers that irritates him.

On their walk back, when Beomgyu turned the screen of his phone to show a picture of his pet parrot back home, Soobin leaned in closer than necessary without thinking.

It's one of those rare days where they're just told to idle around. Their instructors had told them to practice well on their own anyway, but that only meant there's something else more important than the trainees going on. Could be an emergency. Could be Bangtan's next comeback. Soobin doesn't try very hard to find out.

The practice rooms are cluttered and even if there's no 10 hour session today Soobin's brain sort of assigns the smell of sweat with them. He camps out in the hallways instead, leaning against the water cooler as he waits for Kai to use the washroom.

There's a rap of knuckles against one of the doors next to the water coolers. Soobin turns his head to see what it could be only to find Beomgyu, hovering nervously before he's called inside. Soobin watches his thin frame disappear behind the door with a hint of curiosity.

It's mostly never good news to be called in for no informed reason, and with the debut line-up tinkling down from twelve to seven to five, seeing Beomgyu go in with what Soobin thinks was an unsure face kind of feels….. off. There's no way they're letting Beomgyu go. He came in three weeks ago and he's already among the bests. Soobin thinks Beomgyu might even be better than himself.


And if he's being let go, what would that mean for Soobin?

His cup of water feels like bile when he swallows it the more he thinks about it. He doesn't want Beomgyu to leave yet. Right when they were finally becoming friends. He wants to ask so much more. He wants to know what Beomgyu draws in his notebooks in his free time. What ice cream flavor he likes so Soobin won't have to panic the next time they sneak out, he wants to know if Beomgyu also feels like this place is slowly sucking the life out of him, if he can't sleep at night, too.

Yesterday Beomgyu had rested his head on Soobin after practice and the ends of his hair had tickled his neck. His shampoo had smelled different, softer than whatever cheap store bought one Soobin and Kai share, and Soobin wants to ask him where he gets that from.

Before Soobin could have actually doubled over and thrown up, he hears the tell-tale creak of the company doors and his eyes find Beomgyu's big, maniacal eyes—Yeonjun hyung had once pointed out—and the smile on the younger boy's face breaks whatever was building up inside Soobin and threatening to break him instead. He rushes to him without much thought, puts his arms over Beomgyu's shoulders.


"What happened? Are you okay?" he asks, more to escape his own spiraling thoughts than anything else because Beomgyu just looks a little dazed, a little shocked.

"Soobinnie hyung," Beomgyu says around his smile and right, that is also an extremely recent development in whatever him and Beomgyu have got going on. Friendship, he'd say but if Kai were here he'd look at Soobin a little funny. "Are you okay?"

The hell kind of question is that? Soobin is fine, it's Beomgyu he's worried about. "Why are you asking me?"

Beomgyu looks like he's holding back a laugh, his lips pressing together and they kind of make a v-shape. Cute, Soobin's brain supplies, something it does a lot these days, adding prefixes and suffixes to describe Beomgyu's behaviour, additions Soobin did not ask for. Beomgyu puts his hands on either side of Soobin's head, covering his ears as if that will make his thoughts less loud. "You look a little sick, a little pale."

"Why were you called in?," Soobin cuts through the noise to ask.

Beomgyu draws his hands back and perhaps the cold air that hits his ears is what's making them burn so red. "I got a place in the line up," Beomgyu tells him sheepishly.

Well.


At first, Soobin doesn't quite believe him. Nobody has been confirmed yet—perhaps Yeonjun hyung, whose place in the line up is an accepted fact amongst everyone, who else if not Yeonjun hyung?—but the trainees are still in the dark. And Beomgyu is among the newest. It's not like Soobin doesn't think Beomgyu is good enough. Soobin waits for the jealousy to come, some twisted form of why you? but it doesn't. The longer he looks at Beomgyu, waiting for Soobin to say something all Soobin feels is relief. It washes over him, waves of it and something in his chest entangles at the thought.


Beomgyu will be there.


When Soobin debuts, if Soobin debuts, Beomgyu will be there next to him.

It's like he's been bought time, endless amounts of it, because there's a possibility of a future here where he can know Beomgyu, like actually know him, every drawing of his and the reason for it and every silly habit Beomgyu has and why it came to be so. Soobin won't have to wonder so much anymore.

He holds Beomgyu's arms and shakes him, the younger boy's face a little confused, a little shocked. "Beomgyu-yah, Beomgyu-yah that's amazing." He's hugging him, doesn't really know if they have done this before or not. But Beomgyu reciprocates with a bubbly laugh against Soobin's ear and arms around his middle.

When he pulls back, Beomgyu is tinged red. "Don't tell anyone right now! I haven't even told my eomma yet."

Soobin feels a subtle something at being the first to know. He tells that to Beomgyu and he slaps his hand. It doesn't hurt.

"You kind of ambushed me here. I had no choice."

Soobin feels his cheeks burn, maybe because he's so happy. For Beomgyu. "Let's go get ice cream." He proposes, then remembers he was supposed to be waiting for Kai. Without letting go of Beomgyu's hand, he rushes to the washroom's door. "Actually, wait a minute."

The washroom is unsurprisingly empty. Kai must have slipped out sometime between Soobin's conversation with Beomgyu. He wonders if Kai heard them, and the thought sets at an something uncomfortable angle between his ribs. Even if him and Beomgyu weren't really doing anything…..scandalous. Strange thought to think.

Behind him, Beomgyu cranes his neck to look beyond Soobin. "What are we doing?" he asks, voice a little higher than earlier. When Soobin turns to him, Beomgyu’s gaze flicks past his shoulder—at the washroom door, then back at him.

“Hyung,” he says, then stops, lips pressing together like he’s reconsidering his words. He laughs, small and a little too quick.

Soobin blinks, "What?"

Beomgyu gestures vaguely between them, then at the door, his eyes refuse to settle on Soobin’s face. He trails off, coughs, and rubs the back of his neck. “Never mind.”

It takes Soobin a second longer than it should. He follows Beomgyu’s glance to the washroom door, then back to Beomgyu, whose face is still very, very red.

"Oh," Soobin rushes to explain. "I was checking if Kai is in there," he feels his hands go warm, sweaty in the ridges of his fingers. “I was supposed to be waiting for him, and then you came out and I forgot, and I just—” He feels helpless, and too big for this door all of a sudden. He walks back out into the hallway. "I didn't think."

There's a beat, then Beomgyu lets out a laugh, loud and embarrassed. "Oh my god," he groans and covers his face. Soobin feels a little stupid. "Hyung."

Beomgyu recovers rather quickly, quicker than Soobin. "Let's get lunch. I'll pay."

Beomgyu takes him to a place an unwalkable distance away from the company and their dorm. They take the bus, late afternoon sunshine that filters through the windows, casting shadows of whatever objects the bus passes. They sit on the last seats, the bus mostly empty except a lady who's cat dozes off in her lap.

Beomgyu eyes the feline fondly, then wrinkles his nose to say, "Is that allowed, though?"

Soobin shrugs, watches the cat stretch and change positions when the bus stops harshly on a signal. He settles on, "It's not like there's anyone here to complain."

Beomgyu is still looking at it, golden fur that shines whenever the bus takes a turn an the sunlight falls on the left-hand windows.

"Hyung, I want to pet it." He tugs at Soobin's sleeve.

Soobin watches the way Beomgyu’s shoulders relax just looking at it, he thinks—he’s always like this. Soft for simple things.

“You can ask her,” he murmurs, almost too quietly to matter, but Beomgyu hears it. He looks at the cat a little longer and sighs dejectedly.

"She looks pretty asleep," Beomgyu says with half-hearted finality and turns to look out the window. Soobin cannot help but laugh, endeared by the younger boy in a way that tugs at his chest.

They get off on the stop near the market where Beomgyu leads him through the crowded road with a hand clasped tight around Soobin's sleeve. I know a place, he had said on the bus. Soobin followed with an odd giddiness at how eager Beomgyu is about this supposedly simple thing.

The place Beomgyu takes him to is a small shop tucked in the back of a bigger convenience store. It's a shop, really. Hardly big enough to be known beyond its regulars. But it's so far from the company and Soobin with a furrow in his brow wonders who introduced Beomgyu to this place so far from Daegu.

They sit on the outside benches, Beomgyu insisting on sitting next to him instead of across. The table looks cheap but new, clean but the chair Soobin sits on wobbles. He eyes around the place curiously.

Beside him, Beomgyu nudges his shoulder. "My friend lives nearby." He starts to explain. "We used to eat here whenever I visited. Trust me, hyung. The ribs here are," he makes a gesture, kissing his fingers and his lips are round around the tip of the digits, "awesome."

When Beomgyu orders, all his previous bravado drains out and Soobin watches him, entranced. He has a habit of scratching at his hair whenever the waiter asks to clarify their order, shy in a way that's so subtle. It doesn't put the other person off. It makes Soobin want. To prod. He gets the urge to tease Beomgyu and find out what else he does when he's shy. Like earlier in front of the washroom, tip of his ears crimson and hands covering his pretty face.

They eat the ribs. Beomgyu tells a story about trying to raise bugs as a kid, to which Soobin wrinkles his nose. At his reaction, Beomgyu laughs and his chair tips back. Soobin puts his arm on it.

"I hate bugs," Beomgyu says a beat later. "They're ugly." He then gets into deeper thought, "Maybe not butterflies, or dragonflies. They mind their own business. I like that."

Soobin listens, somewhere between eating and complaining about bugs, Beomgyu had taken to wear his glasses. They sit on the bridge of his nose. Keep falling forward with every tip of Beomgyu's head.

Soobin pushes them back for him as Beomgyu tells a story about a bug in his room when he was a child, animatedly acting out the motion of frantically stepping on one. Then he pauses. Takes the glasses off altogether and waves them with a laugh, leaving Soobin to wonder if the weak winter sun makes his skin pink or there's some other reason behind it.

His heart hopes for the latter despite not knowing what it is.

"I don't even need these when I'm wearing contacts," Beomgyu is telling him.

"Then why wear them?" he asks with a smile. Watches Beomgyu press his lips together.

"'Think I look cute in them."

For me? he almost asks, wondering why something so small makes him afraid of what the answer might undo. He watches the way Beomgyu’s mouth tilts like the truth is already there, waiting for Soobin to find out.

They walk without much direction at first, the market thinning behind them, the noise softening as they move. Beomgyu hums a tune Soobin catches immediately, he'd been humming it at odd times recently, tired in the practice rooms and stopping when it earns him a few glares. He keeps adjusting his glasses even though they're sitting just fine now, pushing them up with his knuckles, then letting his hand fall beside him. It brushes the back of Soobin's.

Soobin watches it happen three times before looking away.

They take the bus back to the company while the day turns colder into evening. At the dorm's door, Beomgyu turns to him.

"Thanks for coming with me." He says. "And—" a shift in his tone, even if they are alone, though there are sounds from inside. Soobin doesn't want to enter, despite the fact that Beomgyu will follow after him. Inside the dorm are people, and Beomgyu sleeps in a different room with four boys Soobin hardly ever talks with. "Your number, you should give it to me. I like to game on Sundays."

Soobin blinks. "My number?"

Beomgyu taps his feet a little anxiously, "Yes, hyung. Your number. We could go to the PC cafe together."

Soobin digs out his phone from his pocket. Hands it to Beomgyu who punches in the digits happily, though there is that pinkish tint to his cheeks again.

There is no sun in the hallways of their dorm building.

When Beomgyu is done, he gives Soobin the phone back, a new contact saved on it, already added to his favourites—next to Kai, his mother and his sister.

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

If it was any other of Soobin's friends, he would have rolled his eyes, smacked them on the arm or just changed the contact name to something fairly normal. Beomgyu grins up at him, well, cutely, and Soobin doesn't know what else to say other than: "Why cute?"

"So you know it's me."

"You are the only Beomgyu I know." Soobin is already pocketing his phone.

"You don't agree that I'm cute?"

And really, it must be the lingering warmth of a day well spent that sucks any retort out of Soobin and leaves with him only a soft chuckle in its wake.

He tucks his arms in his pockets to keep him from ruffling Beomgyu's hair, then thinks better of it. Takes Beomgyu's glasses and raises them to rest over his head. Watches Beomgyu look at him do it from under his lashes, lips parted, the apple of his cheeks red and it's not because of the sun.

Then Soobin flicks his forehead and goes inside, smiles at the soft curse that leaves Beomgyu's mouth but there's a smile in it, too.

That night, tucked under the covers and feeling selfishly grateful for the departure of the loud-snoring boy who used to sleep next to him, Soobin sends two texts.

You

i agree
you do look cute

The text bubbles appear not a moment later. Beomgyu must be on his phone, too. Awake in the other room, head probably under the covers as to avoid any prying eyes of half-awake roommates.

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

wow

Soobin frowns.

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

you could have told me to my face

There’s a pause long enough that Soobin flips onto his side, phone clutched to his chest. Beomgyu is right, he could've. But the words get stuck in his throat whenever Beomgyu looks up at him, and he's a coward, always been braver over texts when there isn't a set of soft brown eyes expecting him to be forward.

You

i'm sorry i didn't

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

its okay
i smiled at your text

You

good

Soobin closes his eyes, there’s a warmth behind his ribs that has nowhere to go. He types good before he thinks about it, then winces at how flat it sounds, how unearned.

You

i mean
i'm glad

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

hyung you're bad at texting

Before Soobin has the time to feel hurt or panicked, Beomgyu is typing again.


Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

its cute though

Soobin stares at the ceiling, at the point where the light from the hallway slips over his door. His heart is doing something reckless now, and he's waiting, he's waiting for Beomgyu to follow this with something snarky but he doesn't.

He types slowly, carefully.

You

don't call me cute

The reply is instant.


Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

Why not

Soobin smiles to himself, presses the phone closer, like the random boy asleep a few feet ahead will hear the words he's typing.

That's your thing.

There's another pause, longer this time. Soobin feels his hands sweat and pushes the blanket down to his waist. The dim light illuminates the room and he quickly turns the brightness down.

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

Then what's YOUR thing

Soobin thinks of Beomgyu's glasses that kept slipping off of his nose, his cheeks that get pink in the sun and the expression on Beomgyu's face when he saw the cat on the bus. He thinks of the whole day and can't help but press his smile on the side of his pillow.

You

watching

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

watching what

You

you

Soobin doesn't think what he said was particularly flattering, and Beomgyu hasn't replied yet. The text bubble appears, disappears, appears and disappears again a few times. Soobin grows jittery, twists his hands into the hem of the blanket.

When Beomgyu replies, it's simple.


Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

wow
okay

A beat.


hyung are we flirting

It doesn't hit like a revelation to Soobin. It's almost funny to him that Beomgyu's saying that, when he's been flirting with him all day, the glasses and all. Soobin wants to point it out, count the instances where Beomgyu acted cute in a way that's so obvious.

Or maybe Soobin's delusional, because he knows the way everyone looks at Beomgyu. He's almost… irresistible. All the whispers come back to him from Beomgyu's first week here, the new trainee, the handsome one. He's really pretty, no wonder he didn't even audition. It puts Soobin's weeks long infatuation along with the rest of the crowd, and Soobin had always thought he's not special.

Who doesn't think Beomgyu's cute, or charming or witty in a way that makes Soobin spill his himself on the floor?

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

did u fall asleep lol

Soobin breaks out of his thoughts at the buzz of his phone. It's absurd, he could talk to Beomgyu in the living room if he wanted to and then it would all be much simpler with Beomgyu's face in front of him.

You

Sorry
i guess we are
flirting

Soobin winces at his own wording, but Beomgyu doesn't seem to mind.

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

i like it
i wish you would talk to me more in person
but you kind of just stare
its a little confusing

The thought lands quietly and wrecks him a little: he didn't want to confuse Beomgyu. He didn't even know they were close enough like that before the ice cream date on evaluation day. All this time, he had thought Beomgyu was sort of—indifferent. To Soobin's intrigue regarding him. To Soobin, Beomgyu was like one of those unattainable wishes of his, out of reach but comforting to entertain. An out. I can leave this place. I can start over even if I don't debut.

I like the new trainee, I want to be friends with him.

I want him to join Kai and I for lunch. I want to know him better.

I want.

All this time, Beomgyu had been waiting. And Soobin feels so stupid, cause the thought of being in Beomgyu's place makes him laugh now.

All Soobin has done ever since Beomgyu arrived was watch him. Stare. Wonder.

You

i didn't want to assume we were close like that
but i guess i wanted to be

Soobin holds his phone closer to his face and checks the time. 2:10AM. He doesn't feel a lick of sleepiness in his eyes as he waits for what Beomgyu will say next.

The typing bubble comes and goes once, twice, then disappears long enough that Soobin’s stomach tightens. He sets the phone down on his chest, stares at the dark, waits for the familiar drop of embarrassment to follow—too much, too honest, should’ve softened it—he raises his phone to unsend the last text when Beomgyu's already replied.

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

will you do it tomorrow?

Soobin doesn't really know what Beomgyu is asking. Or he does. He wants to unveil, but he's pretty sure Beomgyu thinks he's an idiot by now. Still, it's two in the morning and Beomgyu is entertaining him. He asks, because if he's an idiot, so be it.

You

do what?

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

flirt with me
its cute when you stare from across the room
but you're cuter up close hyung


It takes everything to not let out an audible giggle. Like the teenage girls in anime when their crush texts them back.

That's kind of what's happening to him right now, though. If he actually thinks about it, he's not very stupid. Part of him panics at the idea of facing Beomgyu tomorrow. He's being way too brave over text.

You

okay
I'll see you tomorrow?

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

you see me everyday

Soobin knows Beomgyu's just teasing him. He gets baited anyway.

You

will you TALK to me tomorrow, choi beomgyu

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

yes soobinnie hyung
i'll talk to you tomorrow all you want

Last night, Beomgyu had flirted with him. He repeats the events of the previous day.

Beomgyu told him about his place in the line-up, only him. Beomgyu took him to lunch to celebrate, held his sleeve as they walked through the market. Beomgyu wore glasses that kept falling off his nose so Soobin would push them back, because he thinks he looks cute with them.


Beomgyu flirted with him over text. Made him promise to do it again in person.

In the morning Soobin came out of the room, thinking he'll find Beomgyu somewhere in the dorm, only to be told Beomgyu left early. He felt relief and disappointment all at once. Part of him wanted to see Beomgyu so much, another part was terrified because what will he do once he does face him?

He spends the whole morning thinking about the text thread, reading and re-reading it. Wondering if he dreamed it all. Kai eyes him suspiciously over breakfast.

"Are you and Beomgyu hyung finally friends?" He asks.

Soobin blinks at him over his bowl of cereal that's gone distastefully soggy. "We were already friends." he says. It's simple cause it was true. They were as much friends as anyone else here.

Now, he's not so sure. Because the term feels reductive. He doesn't think about Kai, Yeonjun hyung or Taehyun or anyone so much he can't make out the cereal from his milk in the morning.

Kai avoids his eyes. "Yesterday, outside the washroom I kind of—" he scratches his nose, "I didn't mean to, but I heard you."

Soobin stills.

"He's debuting, huh?" Kai says, in a whisper. "That's crazy."

Soobin doesn't want to be mad at Kai. But it feels a little ugly, that something Beomgyu had wanted to keep between them was no longer so. Despite it not being Kai's fault.

"Don't tell anyone, right now." Soobin tells. Kai looks at him. Nods.


"Okay."

Soobin doesn't let it go. "I'm serious. He doesn't want others to know."

Kai smiles, weirdly knowing and it sets Soobin on edge. "Okay, hyung."

Then after a beat Kai adds, "I'm glad you and Beomgyu hyung get along." He takes a bite of his bowl, chews and talks around it. "I was worried I'd be stuck as your only friend forever."

Soobin's gaze snaps up at Kai. "Yeonjun hyung is also my friend."

"Yeonjun hyung is everyone's friend."

Soobin gets the childish urge to say, but he likes me more than he likes the others. He holds back, though. Swallows his words, because there's no need to defend himself in front of Kai who's clearly baiting him. For something.

There is no something as far as Soobin knows. Or is there? He debates if he should tell Kai about Beomgyu's texts the from last night. It might be fun, too. He's seen the other boys giggle and ask for advice from their friends when a pretty girl texts them.

But Beomgyu is not a girl and Soobin feels this urge to protect this from everyone. Even from Kai, who has always seemed almost pure and angelic to Soobin.

He finishes his bowl and puts it in the sink, "I'm leaving."

Kai looks up, "I haven't even showered, yet."

Soobin inhales, tries not to feel guilty. "You can come in later? We have an hour before practice starts."

He watches Kai blink at him with confusion. It's understandable. They always leave together. Soobin turns around, "Or with Taehyun. He's still in the dorm. You can come in with him."

Kai closes his mouth. Looks at him for a moment and Soobin feels itchy in his body and the kitchen feels too small. What can Kai see?

At last Kai smiles, like always, sheepishly shy and scratches at the bridge of his nose. "Okay, I'll come in later."

Soobin does everything to not visibly bolt out of the kitchen, grab his coat and be out of the door.

He meets Beomgyu in the hallways like he'd expected, it's too early for lessons to start. There are familiar faces going in and out of the rooms, the cleaner lady, the security guard that naps for the better half of the day.

It's too bright here, an unappealing painting hung on one side of the wall, long as it runs across the majority of the hallway's length. Not romantic at all, Soobin thinks, absurdly. At the end of it is Beomgyu, leaning against the wall with his phone in his hand—glasses off today. He looks up as soon as Soobin steps into the hallway. Like he's been waiting.

Their eyes meet. Then—nothing. No teasing smile like Soobin had anticipated, no Soobinnie hyung in Beomgyu's saccharine tone.

Beomgyu straightens a little too fast, pockets his phone, and for the first time since Soobin’s known him, he looks… unsure. Not shy, exactly. Just paused, like he’s recalibrating.

Soobin feels a sharp sting in his chest, scared he did something wrong. His phone burns a hole in his pocket. Does Beomgyu regret talking to him? Is he too weird about all this?

"Hey," Beomgyu says finally, his voice softer than usual.

Soobin swallows. "Hey."

There's a beat where neither of them moves. Someone passes behind them—the cleaning lady, laughing on her phone, calling someone an idiot—but the space between them feels oddly sealed off.

Soobin remembers the promise. Flirt with me tomorrow.

He shifts his weight, hands curling on his sides. He wants to hold. "You left early."

Beomgyu nods. "Yeah, I-" he stops. Scratches his shin with the tip of his shoe. Soobin's eyes lower to follow the movement. "I wasn't sure if you wanted to see me. Or be weird."

Soobin blinks. "Weird?"

"Like," Beomgyu gestures vaguely, and then drops his hand. Sighs, and his eyes are so big and earnest when they finally settle on Soobin's face again. "I don't know, hyung."

Soobin's chest loosens, the sting that was growing sharp, sharper dulls out when he puts his hand on Beomgyu's shoulder. Misses skin by a few centimeters. Feels the warmth of Beomgyu's body anyway.

"I re-read the texts," he admits. It's easy to. "Like an idiot."

Beomgyu's gaze drops just for a second onto Soobin's hand on his shoulder. "I wasn't teasing. About wanting you to talk to me more."

"I know," Soobin smiles because he knows Beomgyu will mirror it. And because he's tired of only being brave in the dark or from a distance, he adds, "You smile so prettily. I like it."

Beomgyu freezes, then breaks into a laugh. His ears are red, like clockwork, telltale. Easy for Soobin to focus on and ignore that his chest is tightening and loosening and tightening again.

"Hyung," he presses his lips together like he’s trying to hold something back. Soobin desperately doesn't want him to. "You can't say it like that."

Soobin can't help but stare and he's sure his hand is sweaty so he takes it off Beomgyu's shoulder.

"You told me to," Soobin replies. "And I want to."

Beomgyu hums. Takes his hand, sweaty as it is in between his own. They're not walking, no crowd for Beomgyu to lead Soobin through.

Their hands fit together. Soobin finds himself relaxing.

"Let's go," Beomgyu is saying.

"Where?"

A shrug, Beomgyu's hand tighten. "I don't know. Roam around. We have time before instructor comes in."

Soobin tries not to think anything as they walk, through hallways Soobin despises but he's too busy staring at their enjoined hands to notice what he hates when Beomgyu is in front of him. So likeable; real.

Beomgyu, who's going to debut. Automatically congruent with everything Soobin dreams about.

On a Sunday in mid December, Beomgyu takes him to a park.

The park Beomgyu brings him to isn’t crowded, just a stretch of worn grass, a walking path with trees that look like they're barely surviving the brunt of the harsh winter, a few benches occupied by couples and old men with newspapers. It smells faintly like dirt and cold air. The sky is pale, undecided. Mid December and it hasn't snowed yet.

"So," Beomgyu says, rocking on his heels. "PC Cafe later?"

"Yeah," Soobin says. "You promised."

Beomgyu smiles at that, small and satisfied, then starts walking. Soobin follows and craves the warmth of Beomgyu's hands, despite knowing his own are always warmer.

They sit my a bench that overlooks a shallow pond. A few fish swim around, and it's so cold Soobin shivers at the thought of being one. It seems Beomgyu has been wondering the same thing.

"How are they alive? It's feels like if it drops to 2 degrees more the water will definitely freeze." Beomgyu exclaims, rubs his hands together.

Soobin doesn't know how the fish are alive, or what will happen to them once it starts to snow. His mind has unhelpfully locked on to the distance between their thighs, which is not much.

He can feel Beomgyu beside him in a way different than the practice room, from the dorm. There's no mirror here. No people, and the absence of them makes Beomgyu feel impossibly nearer.

"You're staring again," Beomgyu says suddenly.

Soobin startles. "I wasn't."

Beomgyu turns to look at him, fully. His hair catches the sunlight and it looks more brown than black. "You are," he says, not accusing. "You do this thing where you forget to look away."

Soobin's mouth grows dry and he immediately blames the cold air, then looks at Beomgyu's mouth and the weak blame deflates on its own. "You said you liked it."

"I do," Beomgyu admits comfortably.

Soobin hesitates. This feels different from texting. There's no place to hide.

"Your mouth," he says finally.

Beomgyu tilts his head, going for smug but the subtle way his eyes widen betrays him. "My—what?"

"Your mouth," Soobin repeats, gaining confidence by the second. "You smile like you're…. I don't know. Like you're about to laugh, even when you're not." He feels like he might burst, that no words will actually make sense of what he wants to say. He wants to spill himself on the rough pavement of the park and let Beomgyu see, so he won't be such an embarrassment anymore.

Beomgyu's lips part slightly, like he's trying to test out the emotion Soobin just described. "Oh," he says. Beomgyu looks down at his hands, then back up at Soobin, like he’s deciding something.

"So this," Beomgyu says, shifting closer by the inch or maybe less. "Is this okay?"

Their thighs touch.

Soobin’s breath catches immediately. His entire body reacts before his mind can catch up, heat blooming, pulse loud in his ears. He doesn’t move away.

“Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “It’s okay.”

Soobin notices everything, and with Beomgyu so close, he catches his scent. He smells…. like a candy shop and lotion Soobin's mom used to apply in winters when he was five, and a little like the salty taste that lingers on your tongue after a beach day.

Soobin presses their sides together more. Barely a touch, easy for Beomgyu to undo.

Beomgyu laughs. Soobin kind of thinks it's a nervous tick, something he mistook for bravado earlier. "Hyung," he murmurs. "You're so warm."

Soobin lets out a shaky breath of his own, "Yeah. Isn't that a good thing?"

"It is," Beomgyu replies. "It is." He says again, and his head is on Soobin's shoulder again. And then, in a stupidly saccharine voice that makes Soobin even more warm, his stomach doing things he can't imagine to find words to describe, Beomgyu says, "I'm sleepy."

Arm around Soobin's. Head on his shoulder. Soobin stares at the fish in the pond and the cold water they're swimming in. The warmth of Beomgyu's breath on his neck.

He doesn't know how much time passes, but the sun's reflection is softer on the pond now. He thinks of the PC Cafe. Beomgyu wanted to go. But he's making no move to get out of this position they've found themselves in. And at heart Soobin is still a coward, just in a different way. He didn't build this moment, he can't break it either.

It's always been Beomgyu.

He didn't wake him up, even though Beomgyu complained about it all the way back to their dorm but he's holding Soobin's hand and it's all Soobin can think about.

It's better than before, at least. That's what he tells himself when Beomgyu presses his lips to Soobin's cheek outside the dorm's door anyway. Making his heart do dangerous things. Dangerous, to do this in the hallway where everyone can see. Soobin is warm all over with the ghost of Beomgyu's warm body pressed against him in the park. He offers his other cheek.

Beomgyu giggles and presses his lips to the other side, too.

He feels violent with want. Wants to shake himself, shake Beomgyu till something falls out and Soobin can eat away at it. Satiate himself.

The dorm door opens and someone steps out, Soobin hardly registers who. They steps around them and Beomgyu chuckles. "I'll see you tomorrow." He says like they don't live in the same building, in the same apartment, just different rooms.

Soobin smiles, wide so he knows his dimples come out the way Beomgyu likes them. "I'll see you." He says and Beomgyu goes in first.

He doesn't sleep at night. It's typical for him. But he should be thinking about the schedule, about lessons tomorrow, about his school grades that keep dropping, about literally anything else.

He's thinking about Beomgyu.

His warmth, the weight of Beomgyu's head on his shoulder, soft hair tickling his neck and the warmth of his breath subduing it. Their thighs touching.

His cheeks warm up at the faint sensation of Beomgyu kissing them outside the dorm returns to him. Soft, round and Soobin can't shake it off himself. He rolls onto his side, curling into himself, then stretches out. As if he could reach out and press against Beomgyu again.

He doesn't know why he cannot admit to what he wants.

Soobin is not stupid. it's right in front of him, ripe for his taking, all reasons intact. He's leaned on Kai before. He's fallen asleep beside him, he's had Yeonjun hyung drag him by the arms when he was too tired to move. He's fallen aside plenty of boys before, sweaty and uncomfortable to his dismay.

When Beomgyu touches him, Soobin thinks about it for days. Wonders if one more touch could make the world collapse.

Soobin squeezes his eyes shut, but it doesn't help. Beomgyu is probably in the other room fast asleep but Soobin can't help but feel surrounded by him, drowning in sensation that's no longer there. He can hear the faint laughter that makes him want to lean and press closer.

He opens his phone and scrolls through whatever notifications he has. Opens Beomgyu's text thread.

It's something mundane to which Soobin didn't reply. Probably because Beomgyu was in front of him and Soobin had just spoken the answer instead.

Pathetically, desperately, he replies now and hopes Beomgyu is asleep and doesn't notice his obviousness. He's not so lucky. Or he is. Because Beomgyu replies immediately.

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

i can't sleep either
funny thing
i was thinking about today

Soobin lies in bed and it's like the glow of the phone screen goes straight through his skin and lights something up in his ribcage.

You

that's a good thing right

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

yes hyung
obviously

Soobin bites his lip. Thinks about admitting things and bravery and awkwardness till it's all a mess in his head and nothing else matters that's not Beomgyu on the other side of the line.

You

it's distracting
thinking about one thing all the time

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

what's distracting?

You

i don't know… all of it

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

you mean me

Soobin’s stomach twists. His mouth goes dry. He sets the phone down on his chest and stares at the ceiling. It's too late to be thinking like this. To feel like this.

Hands fidget with the hem of his sleeve. He twists the blanket in knots, then throws it off in frustration. His phone buzzes. He almost doesn’t pick it up, but the tiny light on the screen feels like a lifeline.

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

still thinking?

It's like every response Soobin could come up with is wrong. A final thought comes to him, perhaps the most and least rational of all up til now: It's too late to care.

You

yes
a little


Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

only a little :(
i thought you thought i was pretty
am i not

He shifts, hugs his pillow to his chest and then shifts again. Fidgets, tries to ignore the heat pooling behind his ribs. His cheeks burn, his ears itch. He looks at the ceiling and no word actually works right now.

He throws his blanket off, sits up onto the mattress and rests his phone on his knees. But it doesn’t work. He can’t stop thinking. Can’t stop remembering. Can’t stop wanting.

You

i don't know what to do with all this

It's the most honest he has been to Beomgyu that's not the touches he offers selfishly for him to take, to himself about Beomgyu.

He puts the phone down and exhales shakily. His body feels warm and feverish. Mouth dry, he plants his feet on the cold floor and winces at the sensation that shoots up his legs. He pads towards the kitchen to grab water, thinking it might calm him.

When he rounds the corner, he freezes.

Beomgyu. Sitting on the dingy chairs of their dorm's dining table. Phone on the table, and he's smiling. He hasn’t noticed Soobin yet. His hair falls into his eyes as he drinks water, the soft light catching the curve of his jaw, the way his lips glisten from the liquid.

Soobin swallows again, the heat he was trying to escape blooming in his body.

Beomgyu looks up, and their eyes meet. And then he smiles, a little startled, still sweet.

Soobin feels overwhelmed with whatever is happening in his chest. He might burst and spill his guts all over the floor.

Beomgyu goes back to typing. Soobin's phone buzzes in his pocket. He takes it out and reads as Beomgyu watches him from across the hall.

Cute guy Beomgyu ❤️

you came to the kitchen…?

Soobin walks closer, into Beomgyu's earshot. "I needed water," He lies. Hopes Beomgyu can tell.

"Right," Beomgyu turns his screen off and it gets dark. Soobin's eyes take a moment to adjust and—fuck.

Beomgyu has stood up, he's close, close enough that Soobin doesn't need lighting to make out his features. He's handed a glass half full of water.

He drinks. Watches as Beomgyu's eyes focus on where his lips meet the rim. The bob of Soobin's Adam's apple as he drinks.

When there's no more water left, Soobin still feels thirsty.

Beomgyu puts the glass on the counter behind him. Steps closer, and Soobin steps back instinctively. His back hits a surface, the buzz of the fridge all over his back, the buzz under his skin stronger. Their bodies are close, close enough that Soobin doesn't feel the chill of the cold floor on his legs anymore.

His eyes drop to Beomgyu's lips, wet from the water, wet from licking on them.

"Beomgyu," he says like an admission. Voice low. Beomgyu laughs softly and Soobin feels that want overtake over any senses still working for him that are not locked in on Beomgyu, his smell, his mouth and the subtle shift of his body against Soobin.

A hair length's distance. Easy to close, an out and an opening.

Soobin can't take it anymore.

He presses his lips to Beomgyu's mouth. Completely misinterprets the distance and the kiss lands on the corner of his lips, Soobin's mouth next to Beomgyu's instead of over it. But Beomgyu exhales immediately, his body relaxing and there's no denying anymore. They're flush against each other.

Soobin can feel it before it happens, Beomgyu's telltale nervous chuckle and before it's even out he raises his hands to either side of Beomgyu's face, slots their lips together. Sealed.

He doesn't know how he knows what he's doing, what he should do next, or anything else.

He knows that Beomgyu's mouth is soft, softer than anything Soobin could have imagined. Wet and warm and Soobin wants, wants, wants so much he might drink Beomgyu in till they are one entity. He doesn't want to know anything else that's not this.

They part for a moment, and it's a miracle Soobin doesn't die on the spot.

Beomgyu has his eyes closed for a second longer than Soobin, lips parted. Soobin wants to lean back in, but he wants to look at Beomgyu's eyes. When he opens them, there’s warmth—so much warmth. Not just the body heat radiating from him, but a kind of presence that fills the room and pulls Soobin in, makes him aware of every inch of proximity between them.

"Hyung," Beomgyu breathes, doesn't even move his lips in the slightest to get the word out. Soobin thinks he might go insane after this. "You're beautiful." He's pressing forward, hands on Soobin's torso, clutching, asking for more.

Soobin kisses him again, because he can't stand to hear Beomgyu verbalize his want. He's going to break, melt into a puddle at Beomgyu's feet.

He pushes at Beomgyu's chest—not to stop but nudge him—flips them so Beomgyu is the one pressed against the fridge. Soobin crowds him, puts his lips back on Beomgyu's again because he might just be addicted to this now. The little sounds Beomgyu makes, his tongue that runs over Soobin's bottom lip and the sighs he blows into them. It's all there is for Soobin to think about, it's all he wants, has ever wanted.

Beomgyu holds onto his shoulders, digs his fingertips in as Soobin starts to gasp for air, pulling apart but not quite, til their lips are swollen and hair wrecked.

He laughs, not even slightly satiated but Beomgyu's face is still in between his palms and their bodies are stuck together and he doesn't want to be selfish for once. Beomgyu's mirroring laugh washes over him and maybe if the world outside this kitchen ends it won't even matter to Soobin.

Kissing Beomgyu becomes the highlight of his day. Then it becomes habit. Soon it's almost like Soobin's addicted.

Beomgyu always kisses eagerly, like this is something grand Soobin's offering him. Like Soobin is a tree he can climb. He kisses him in places that spike Soobin's heartbeat. In the company hallway, in the living room of the dorm where any of the ten boys could just walk in. Reckless and Soobin never complains, lets Beomgyu nibble on his lips as much as he wants, for as long as he wants.

When Soobin initiates, it's slow, in the liminal spaces where he feels the safest. He took a day off, sick with a fever and Beomgyu stayed back, the dorm empty just for them, kissing on the couch even though Soobin kept reminding him of shared germs.

"It's good for me," Beomgyu had mumbled petulantly, mouth on the base of Soobin's throat. "If I get sick I'll get a day off, too."

Soobin couldn't think much past the feeling of Beomgyu's tongue on his skin, something Beomgyu is shy about so it's fleeting, a brush of the velvety skin and it's gone. "You already took a day off."

"But if I get sick I won't be scolded for it." And who's Soobin to argue to that?

Soobin kissed him in the heap of folded mattresses in the room Beomgyu sleeps in, ten minutes before the other boys come in, giggling when he touches somewhere Beomgyu is ticklish. Legs wrapped around his waist, arms on Beomgyu's neck. Lips on each other.

Beomgyu makes the sweetest sounds, against Soobin's lips, against his skin. High when he's whiny and Soobin wants him to act a little cute. Low in his gravelly voice that makes Soobin want to hide away, between the juncture of Beomgyu's shoulder and neck.

Sometimes he texts him after, something stupid and mundane followed by, hyung, I can't wait to kiss you again or when he's across the table and Soobin is trying really hard to pay attention to Kai and whatever story he's telling but his phone buzzes and there it is, one text to set him completely off the rail.

When they can't kiss, Beomgyu sits on his lap and holds his hands and presses against Soobin's side; and it isn't any less than kissing really. Because when they kiss, Soobin's world boils down to the sensation of Beomgyu's lips on his. But touching Beomgyu when there's everyone around to see, it sets Soobin on fire, his cheeks red and his hands heavy where they clench into fists. Like the tiniest movements will give him away, his secret split like a bag of marbles on the floor and there's no point to chase after and gather them.

They are fussing over lunch, Taehyun sitting next to Kai and Soobin next to Beomgyu. Three plates of tteok-bokki between them. He finds Yeonjun in the distance, talking to some other boys, the last of the few left now.

When Yeonjun and Taehyun were announced, everyone accepted like second nature. Of course.

When Beomgyu's news started spreading, Soobin felt like he'll jump out of his skin. The response wasn't harsh, but it wasn't kind either. He felt the stares meant for Beomgyu like daggers on his own back, and all he wanted was to tuck Beomgyu in his chest and never let him leave.

But Beomgyu laughs heartily at something Kai is saying now, and it doesn't matter. Because the people Soobin loves love Beomgyu and it's more than what he can ever ask. And the ones who are not so kind to him will not exist in the future they have ahead of them.

Beomgyu head comes to rest against Soobin's arm as he hiccups at the joke Kai is still telling. Warm, like their legs pressed together under the table.

Soobin wants and that's it. Simple. He wants and he can take, he can go home and kiss the smile off of Beomgyu's face.

Soobin is the last to go back to the dorm that day, sleep away his aching limbs when he's called in.

Dread settles low in his belly. It's probably nothing, he tells himself as he goes into the room, his instructor waiting for him and some others. They regard him, tell him to sit down.

Soobin calculates. If he's being let go, will he go back to Ansan? It feels so far away. What will he do if not debut? Join another company, maybe. Start over. Leave Kai behind.

Watch as Yeonjun hyung, Taehyun and Beomgyu debut together while he goes back to where he started, almost a year ago but in another unfamiliar building. Unfamiliar faces.

He cannot bear the thought. He's scared he might throw up on an empty stomach. His limbs ache sharper and it's not from the exertion earlier. Soobin feels so heavy he might sink through the floor.

His instructor folds his hands in front of him, the usual blank expression on his face.

"We are offering you a place in the line up."

For a minute, he just blinks. "Me?"

His instructor nods, "Yes. Congratulations, you've worked hard."

Soobin should feel relief, but it's more like deflating. He's going to debut. He's going to be with the friends he made here for the rest of his life.

He's going to debut.

The walk back to the dorm is hazy. He calls him mom, talks to her about dinner and the cold now slowly moving away. The words eomma, I'm going to debut rise to the tip of his tongue a thousand times in the 10 minute conversation but he doesn't say them. Even when he's standing at the dorm's door and his mother is saying her usual line that means she's going to cut the call. You can always come back home, son. You know that, right?

He bids her goodbye and opens the door to the dorm to step inside.

It's chaos, Beomgyu is running in circles around the couch, Yeonjun chasing him with a string of curses thrown at him. Kai sits on the carpet, textbook open in hand but he's doubled over as he laughs at the sight of Beomgyu holding Yeonjun's phone out of his reach.

Yeonjun hyung yanks his phone away and sits down, still muttering curses under his breath as Beomgyu smiles sweetly at him from the carpet. His own notebook open next to Kai's. Soobin steps in and takes his jacket off. Washes his hands. He should tell them, but he refrains.

He sits next to Yeonjun hyung and smiles to himself. The nagging at his chest is so dormant now. Almost nonexistent.

He knows it will come back tomorrow, new fears, something else to worry about.

He feels cruel, looking at Beomgyu now. Feels the tightening in his chest return. Beomgyu looks up from his notebook and smiles and he looks cute and kissable, everything unlike the devil's assistant Yeonjun hyung was describing him to be a minute ago. And so the tightening loosens, the sting replaced by liquid warmth that thickens the longer he looks at Beomgyu.

He feels cruel to have subjected Beomgyu to this, this fate of Sisyphus of being the balm on this sting forever. But the soothe is annoyingly persistent. So he looks at Beomgyu's head bent over his notebook and he thinks if all his worries are eternal, then this must be too.

After dinner, he finds Beomgyu in front of the door to his room, hand on the knob. He looks up at Soobin like he saw this coming, eyes bright in the way Soobin likes, the kind that he can stare into forever. "Hyung," he says softly, conspiratorial, like he's already sharing something. He doesn't ask why Soobin was late or why he looks a little undone.

Soobin's hand comes to hold Beomgyu's wrist, so much smaller in his grasp, tender when he presses his thumb into the vein and feel his pulse quicken in real time. He opens his mouth, I'm going to debut, but the words don't come out, crowding at the back of his teeth. Like every time, Beomgyu waits for him to gather himself anyway.

"Come in," Beomgyu says, like he knows. Somehow, it's always him knowing things before Soobin can spell them out in his own head.

Inside, the room is strangely empty. A few more days before the last spot in the line up is locked and Soobin quickly pushes down the haunting thought of what they will do if it's not Kai. Focusing on the way Beomgyu pulls him down to sit on the folded mattresses, a higher platform, a makeshift bed.

Beomgyu reaches for his notebook before Soobin can get any words he was going to say. It lands open in his lap with a soft thud, pages worn at the edges. Ah, Soobin remembers, stark as anything. Beomgyu's notebook, one of the first things that caught Soobin's attention back when he had self-encased himself and his want to a life of distant longing. It's still overflowing, even more now.

“Look,” Beomgyu says, like it’s nothing. Like it’s not a piece of himself he’s holding out. Something Soobin used to wonder about all the time.

Soobin sits beside him, the words I’m going to debut folding in on themselves, tucked away somewhere safe and cowardly. He leans in instead. The pages are a mess of things—lyrics half-crossed out, arrows pointing nowhere, a small drawing in the corner of a boy with his knees pulled to his chest, mouth open like he’s mid-song or mid-laugh. More lyrics.

It seems like Beomgyu writes a lot.

"You wrote this?" Soobin asks quietly.

Beomgyu shrugs, shoulders lifting. "I get bored."

Soobin leans in, reads a paragraph of lyrics to a love song or lines for a poem. He taps it once with his finger. He says, “Where do you get this from?”

Beomgyu lets out a small laugh, too quick, too light. It’s the one he does when he’s caught off guard, when his hands don’t know what to do with themselves. "I don't know," he says. "It just… comes."

Soobin hums, like he believes him. Like he doesn’t feel the way Beomgyu’s knee presses closer, the way the air between them tightens around the words. Like the truth doesn't sit heavy and obvious between them and for the first time Beomgyu's evading it, too. Lodged somewhere between Beomgyu's smile and the lyrics on the page.

Soobin lets it go, a conversation for another time, when they're braver and older.

He knows now that when that time comes, they will be together to see it.

"I'm going to debut."

For a second, Beomgyu just stares at him.

Then his notebook slips from his hands, forgotten, and he’s moving, knees pressing into the pile of mattress, weight settling over Soobin like he’s decided something and won’t be talked out of it. His hands frame Soobin’s face, a little clumsy, a little reverent.

“You’re serious,” he says, breathless. Not a question.

Soobin nods, that's all he manages when Beomgyu kisses him.

It's not frantic, it's not careful either. Beomgyu presses himself into it messily, lips moving with intention, his hands on either of Soobin's face, squishing him. He parts for air, giggles then Beomgyu kisses him again, slower this time, forehead resting against his when he pulls back, like he needs to stay close to believe it.

"We're really doing this," Beomgyu says, his voice low and shaky with something that sounds like joy. "Hyung, we're going to be idols. You're not leaving. You're not gonna leave."

Soobin’s hands come up to steady him, thumbs brushing warm skin at Beomgyu’s waist. “Yeah,” he says. “Together.”

Beomgyu smiles at that, wide and unguarded, and kisses him once more, like he’s sealing it.

Beomgyu stays where he is, knees bracketing Soobin’s hips, like if he moves the moment will shatter. Soobin’s hands rest at his waist, unsure and steady all at once. They smile at each other and then look away, then laugh quietly because it’s suddenly too much, because it’s suddenly real.

Beomgyu leans down again, slower this time. They kiss slower, too. Exploratory like it hasn't been since their first. Soobin holds onto the fabric of Beomgyu's shirt as he lets him take it, lets Beomgyu map out the shape of his lips like he's learning something new.

The heat of his body presses down on him and Soobin's leans back automatically, pulls Beomgyu with him. He bumps his nose against Soobin’s and murmurs an apology that doesn’t need to exist. Lets his hands wander below Beomgyu's shirt, on the soft skin of his waist, palms on the expanse of his lower back.

He presses there and feels Beomgyu moan into his mouth. Feels his arousal against his hip. Pulls back.

"Beomgyu-yah," he says, tentative. Not brave enough to take what he wants, but brave enough to show Beomgyu he's scared, too.

Beomgyu nods, "Yes," he says and he's kissing his throat again. "Yes, Soobin."

The drop in honorifics would set him off any other day, but right now it makes him groan when Beomgyu laps at the edge of his earlobe. Pushes his hips into the heat of Soobin's body once more.

They move in increments. Socks kicked off. Soobin's sweater tugged over his head and dropped wherever it lands.

When he does the same for Beomgyu, his breath catches. He's seen every boy who's lived in this dorm without some form of clothing before, but this is different. Heavy, and Beomgyu shivers as the cold air hits his skin. Soobin flips them over, Beomgyu's back against the mattress.

Soobin feels a burning akin to a rash spreading across his limbs. A watery thing pooling at the back of his spine, aching for Beomgyu to dip his fingers in it, spreading the liquid desire across his body until he’s satiated or begging for more.

It's clumsy, they don't have anything to work with more than fumble and use their hands. He watches as his hand works, Beomgyu's lashes stuck together when he's squeezing his eyes shut. Keeping his pleasure from spilling over them both, ending this prematurely.

"You're beautiful, Beomgyu-yah," he says, caresses his face with his free hand. They knock elbows. Beomgyu nearly slides off the mattress and groans in embarrassment before burying his face against Soobin’s shoulder as his hips buck up into the touch. Soobin kisses his hair and tells him it’s fine, tells him he’s perfect, tells him nothing at all and lets his hands speak instead.

When Beomgyu reaches his high, his mouth parted, a string of just hyung, hyung, hyung spilling from them, prettiest sight he's ever seen and Soobin could come just from this, watching this boy in his most vulnerable state. Soobin's wide awake but he dreams to have lifetimes of just this.

Later, they lie entangled on the heap of mattresses, limbs around each other. Warm despite the blanket that's covering them being worn and thin.

"Soobin," Beomgyu says after a while. Voice stripped of the earlier certainty. "Do you think people will like me?"

Soobin stiffens, looks down at Beomgyu's face, lips still kiss swollen but in his features in the dim light Soobin sees doubt, but not about what they've just done. Bigger than that.

"After we debut," Beomgyu clarifies. "Do you think the people…will they love me?"

Soobin exhales, slow. His hand comes up to cradle the back of Beomgyu’s neck, thumb brushing over warm skin. Thinks, about Beomgyu, about the day Soobin dropped all those bottles on him and Beomgyu had only joked.

He thinks about Beomgyu and nothing comes to him except one thing. He opens his mouth and maybe it's the fucked up brain chemicals that push all words he's ever thought out of him.

“I didn’t really know much about love,” he says, words uneven, not rehearsed. “Not like this. But then I met you,” Soobin continues. “And you’re—” He stops, searching, shakes his head faintly. “You’re good. You’re kind. You’re beautiful. And the love I have for you is all of those things, too. You deserve all of the love in the worlds and I know you'd put it right back where you got it from. Because that's who you are."

He presses his forehead to Beomgyu’s. “Love is everything you are,” he murmurs. “And you are everything.”

For a moment, Beomgyu stays silent. Then presses their faces against each other, noses squished against each other's cheeks and mouths open but not kissing. Like he needs proof of Soobin's existence.

Soobin would give anything to prove himself true.

"Okay," Beomgyu says eventually. It's shaky but it's enough.

They stay like that until sleep starts to tug at the edges of them, the sting in his chest dormant because Beomgyu is holding him so close and his future no longer sharp and frightening but close, too—close enough to touch and to believe in.

As he drifts off to sleep, he hopes that this time the certainty stays.

The next morning he wakes up to four texts from Kai, and he has to press his smile into Beomgyu's sleep wrinkled shirt to keep himself from actually crying.

Hyuka

hyung where are u
i NEED to tell u something

guess you're busy i'll just text u
i'm debuting too >_<