Archive of Our Own

It started, like most disasters in Taeui's life, with his friends opening their mouth. 

The thing about his friends was that they had absolutely zero chill.

They were in the back corner of the classroom, six desks dragged into a loose circle, nine minutes before morning lecture, doing absolutely nothing productive. Taeui had his chin in his hand and was watching Han Sungmin attempt to defend his kissing tale to a table of people who were not buying it.

"Okay so she pulls back, right" Sungmin was standing on his chair. Nobody had asked him to stand on his chair. This weird man had simply decided that this story required elevation. "and I go in slow, like a gentleman, right, because you can't just slam lips together."

"He definitely slammed," said Park Donghu while snacking on some chips.

"I did NOT. I will not accept negativity on my first kiss."

"You sound like a YouTube ad," said Donghu.

"No! Listen. The thing is," Sungmin said with wide eyes. Looking like someone who had been waiting to say this kind of shit since he woke up, "mine was actually really good. Like, objectively."

"You literally said you bumped her nose," said Chanwoo while typing on his phone.

"Yeah that was the approach but she pulled back and when I went for it again, the actual kiss was good...objectively"

"Those are connected events, Sungmin."

“No it isn’t! Its romantic as hell!”

"Well mine was at the school festival," said Jinho, unprompted, cutting Sungmin off. Jinho looks like someone who had been excited to share. "Two years ago. We were behind the food stalls. I kissed her first."

"And?" Sungmin said.

Jinho smiled, the private, slightly faraway kind. "It was nice. It was really nice and short. She pulled back and then we both just kind of...stood there."

"That's it?" Beomsu said. Kwon Beomsu had his arms crossed and was looking at Jinho with the expression of someone expecting more plot.

"That's it," Jinho said. "It was like five seconds. But I thought about it for the rest of the night." He paused. "And like, the rest of the week. The month, honestly."

"There is no follow up?"

"No."

"Oh you fucking idiot."

"Okay but was it wet," Sungmin said, and everyone groaned.

"WHY is that always your first question?"

"It's a VALID question, Jinho, wetness is a factor."

"It's not the FIRST factor, you pervert."

"It's literally the first thing you notice though."

"That is not true for everyone."

Taeui grinned. Around him the table was chaotic in the way that it always was when these five idiots got going. Everybody talking over everybody but nobody was actually being mean about it, just fucking loud. The kind of loud that boys who had known each other long enough to trash each other like this.

"At least you guys had normal first kisses," said Yoo Chanwoo, completely out of nowhere. “Mine was a disaster.”

Everyone turned to him.

Chanwoo didn't talk a lot. He was the kind of person who sat at the edge of chaos and observed it with gentle detachment, only occasionally dropping bombs. He was looking at his desk with his usual expression, which was the same whether he was bored, annoyed, or apparently about to admit something.

"It was in third year of middle school," he said. "We were watching a movie at her place. I went for it when she turned her head."

"Okay?? It sounds normal enough."

"I kissed her ear," Chanwoo said.

Dead silence.

Then Jinho put his face in his hands.

"Chanwoo. CHANWOO!"

"What can I do? It was dark."

"Her EAR though? How?"

"May I remind you that I don’t have night vision. The geometry was wrong, I miscalculated—"

"How dark is that movie theater?"

"Why am I hearing miscalculations!"

"I committed to it," Chanwoo said, with so much dignity that Taeui nearly fell off his chair. "I kissed her ear and then I pulled back and said "good?" like I had meant to do that."

"YOU SAID WHAT NOW?"

"Well I had to recover somehow. I don’t wanna ruin the vibe."

"DID SHE SAY ANYTHING?"

"She laughed for a very long time," Chanwoo said. "And then she kissed me properly. So it worked out."

The table was noisy. Sungmin was gripping Beomsu's arm. Jinho was fully bent over his desk. Taeui was laughing hard enough that his eyes were watering, and even Donghu — Park Donghu, who had a resting bitch face — had his mouth pressed flat in the way that meant he was also fighting it.

"She texted me the next day," Chanwoo said, with quiet finality. "So."

"The ear kiss had a sequel," Jinho said wonderingly.

"We went on two dates," Chanwoo said, and picked at his desk.

"I practiced for my first kiss," said Kwon Beomsu, from Taeui's left.

Everyone looked at him.

Beomsu was new. He still had that transferred-in energy of someone who hadn't fully figured out that you were supposed to let other people overshare first. 

"On my arm," he added. "My elbow specifically."

"Your elbow? Wowww," Sungmin said, trying to be kind. “How did you even reach that?”

"I'm flexible and the elbow has a softer similar… the shape is…" Beomsu pointed at them all defensively. "You know what, at least I was practicing. At least I cared about technique. That's more than most of you."

"I practiced too you know," said Yoo Chanwoo, so flatly and with such perfect timing that it took the room a full two seconds to process it. “On a melon.”

"A MELON?"

"My mom bought a big one. I was in my first year. I returned it to the fridge after." He paused. "She made juice from it the next morning."

The circle lose it.

Taeui was laughing and for exactly four glorious seconds he forgot that this conversation was a wheel and wheels kept turning and the direction it was turning was directly toward him.

Jinho went off his chair. Sungmin was wheezing so hard he was basically silent, tears in the corners of his eyes. 

"Beomsu," Sungmin said, still recovering. "Continue your story, man. I was curious how your practice went on application."

Beomsu straightened up. "It was a bus stop," he said. "Just last year. It was raining."

"Ohhh that actually feels romantic." Jinho started.

"I sneezed on her."

"Oh fuck no."

“That poor girl.”

"Right before. I felt it coming, I tried to hold it but I couldn't." Beomsu's expression was the flat acceptance of a man who had made peace with this. "I sneezed directly on her face. And then I panicked and kissed her anyway."

The table went completely silent for two seconds.

"You kissed her after sneezing on her," Sungmin said.

“Ewww.”

"She opened her mouth first! What was I supposed to do, say no thank you?"

"Maybe she was shocked, you dumbass. You could have apologized." Taeui said.

"I DID, after—"

"After you kissed her? You shithole!"

"The kiss was also an apology."

"BEOMSU!"

"SHE KISSED ME BACK, it worked!"

"HOW IN THE FUCKING HELL?"

"I don't know, I've never understood it, she texted me that night and said it was cute."

"Sneezing on someone is not cute."

“Mucus is not cute.”

"I KNOW THAT, I can't explain her taste."

"That's insane, man!"

"It worked, didn't it!"

"Did it really work, though?"

"We dated for four months!"

"Four months is not the flex you think it is."

Taeui was crying. Actually crying. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and looked at Donghu, who was the only one who hadn't gone yet aside from him, and Donghu caught his eye.

"Don't," Donghu said.

"Donghu," Sungmin said.

"No."

"Donghu. Just a bit."

"Not happening."

"EVERYONE SHARED YOU KNOW."

"Chanwoo kissed an ear and survived the telling," Jinho added helpfully. "It's a safe space."

"There is no information you can share," Chanwoo said, "that is worse than sneezing on someone and then kissing them anyway."

“Pleaseee.” Taeui said with his best puppy eyes. He needs to buy time.

"Fine." Donghu pulled his chair in. "Second year. School trip. She was in Class B."

"From Class B??" Jinho said. "I didn't know that."

"Nobody knew, we were keeping it quiet." Donghu waved his hand. "Anyway, it was a bus ride home on our last day of school. We're in the back. She just went…" he made a simple gesture, hand moving forward then back. "Peck. Quick. And then she looked out the window like nothing happened."

"That's it?" Beomsu said.

"That's IT," Donghu said, "and I didn't know what to do so I also looked out the window."

"Awee.. two people looking out a window 'cause they're shy."

"It went for like twenty minutes."

"Donghu, you should’ve talked to her."

"I know but I was SIXTEEN." Donghu shook his head. "But it was good. It was… I don't know. The twenty minutes of looking out the window was actually kind of nice."

Jinho made a soft sound. "That's weirdly romantic."

"Yeah well." Donghu looked at his desk. Something briefly genuine on his face before it went to his resting bitch face. "She moved schools end of that year. So."

A small quiet fell over the table.

"Okay," Donghu said, shaking it off, and turned.

He looked at Taeui.

Taeui looked back.

"Your turn," Donghu said.

And there it was.

The wheel had turned. It had always been going to turn. Taeui had known since Sungmin told them his first kiss story that it was going to turn, and he'd spent the whole conversation preparing and had come up with nothing because there was nothing to come up with because Jeong Taeui — warm, easy, social, never-met-a-person-he-didn't-eventually-win-over Jeong Taeui — had never kissed anyone. Not even once.

Taeui had exactly nothing.

SHIT.

Then Sungmin looked at him.

Taeui's stomach dropped through the floor.

"Jeong," Sungmin said, pointing. "You. You've been sitting there all comfortable laughing at everyone else."

"I'm always comfortable."

Sungmin narrowed his eyes. "First kiss. Details. Right now."

"Yeah, Taeui, come on," Jinho said, already recovered, rotating fully to face him. "We all shared. That's the deal."

"I don't remember agreeing to a deal."

"Even I shared mine," said Donghu.

Taeui looked at Donghu. Donghu looked back. 

Donghu, of all people.

Five faces on him. Sungmin’s expectant, Jinho’s delighted, Chanwoo watching with the attention of someone who collected information for blackmail, Beomsu with the relieved expression of a man who wanted someone else in the hot seat, and Donghu, who missed nothing, who was already doing the thing where he tilted his head slightly because he'd noticed something suspicious.

Oh this is really bad, Taeui's brain said. This is actually really bad.

Taeui opened his mouth.

The bell rang.

The sound hit him like a lifeline dropped from the sky.

"Lecture," he said, standing up already. "Let's go." 

"WE'RE NOT DONE!" Sungmin started.

"Can't hear you," Taeui said, grabbing his notebook and walking toward his seat at a pace that was technically not running. "already moving." 

"JEONG TAEUI"

"Love you, guys."

"THIS ISN'T OVER!" Sungmin called after him.

"Terrible," Taeui called back, smiling at nothing, walking fast. "Couldn't hear you. Too far away."

He retained absolutely zero information from the morning lecture.

He tried. He genuinely tried. He wrote some notes in his notebook while his brain ran a completely different program. Well, at least he had his notes to go back to later.

But his problem lies with lunch.

Okay fuck okay. Think brain. Think

Sungmin is going to come back to this at lunch. He brought up the trash can thing last time. Taeui had tripped over a trash can in the school entrance, he'd looked around to check if anyone saw, everyone had seen. Sungmin brought that shit up for three months. He has the memory of someone who specifically saves these things.

So Sungmin is going to ask. And Jinho is going to be right behind him. And Donghu is going to be sitting there noticing everything because Donghu is a menace.

And I have nothing. Literally nothing. I have never kissed anyone. 

I'm going to be eaten alive.

What am I going to say?

He wrote elastic demand in his notes. Wrote underneath it, tiny: I need a story.

The story should be something believable. He'd tried lying to Sungmin once during second year about a project deadline. He had said he'd finished when he hadn't and Sungmin had asked eight follow-up questions in a row until the whole thing caved in on itself. He wasn't a bad liar. Sungmin was just weirdly relentless when something felt off.

He needed something real. Actual information he could pull from his non-existent experience. Sensory details you couldn't invent. He needed to know what he was talking about.

He tapped his pen on the notebook.

Available resources, he thought. Well he had the internet.

He pulled out his phone under the desk and typed, very quietly, with one thumb. first kiss tips realistic tutorial.

Google showed him thousands of options. The quantity is overwhelming.

He locked the screen before anyone could see. Later. He should do this later in private.

Bathroom, he decided. Third floor. Library corridor. Nobody goes there.

He spent the rest of the lecture not retaining a single thing.

Lunch hit like a deadline.

Taeui was on his feet before anyone else even closed their notebooks.

"Bathroom," he announced. “I’ll catch up with you guys.”

"Taeui"

"Digestion is a continuous process, Jinho."

"You went before the first period," Sungmin pointed out.

"The body," Taeui said, already walking, "does what the body does. See you there."

He was out the door before Sungmin could form a full sentence.

Third floor bathroom. Library adjacent. Nobody came here except people who wanted to be alone, and Taeui needed to be alone with absolutely catastrophic urgency.

He locked the middle stall. Sat on the lid. Opened YouTube.

He typed: first kiss tips realistic

He felt like an idiot. He was doing it anyway.

First result: a girl with a ring light and color-coded diagrams. He closed it immediately, he didn't need a presentation, he needed something that would work in approximately three minutes.

Second result: movie compilation. Useless. No one kissed like that in real life, those were choreographed with seventeen camera angles and a director yelling cut.

Third result: a normal guy, mid-twenties, sitting on a regular couch, titled "First Kiss Tips (For Noobs)" Fine. That one.

He tapped play.

And immediately remembered he didn't have his earphones.

He sat there for a second.

His earphones. Were in his bag. Which was in the classroom. Because he'd left the classroom in a hurry because he was in the middle of a crisis and crises made you stupid, apparently, and he'd left behind the one piece of equipment that separated doing research from going insane.

Fuck.

Okay. He’s doing this anyway. He doesn't have much time. He turned the volume down as low as it could go and pressed the phone close to his ear.

"The most common mistake is tensing up. Your lips need to be soft. Imagine you're about to say the letter M, and then stop right at the start of it."

Taeui's mouth moved. M. He sat in a toilet stall making shapes with his lips like a man learning to speak.

He was eighteen years old. He was one of the top cohort for physical fitness. He'd run a 5K in under twenty-two minutes. He'd survived a week of mandatory military prep camp on four hours of sleep. He was doing this shit instead.

"Pressure matters a lot. Too hard and it's uncomfortable. Too soft and it doesn't register as a kiss. You want something right in the middle. Find the middle ground." 

He raised his hand. Curled two fingers to leave a gap between his knuckles. He looked at it. It looked extremely stupid. But this stupid is his substitute for lips.

He pressed his mouth to it anyway.

The video said to put even pressure. He tried to gauge it, tilting his head slightly the way the video mentioned because apparently noses were something you had to think about, which is fair, that was a thing, why had no one mentioned that, the logistics of faces should be taken into account.

"movement should come from your lips, definitely not your jaw or your whole head. You’re not diving in"

He adjusted. Tried again. He was concentrating with everything he had, his eyes had gone slightly unfocused.

"Remember that good kissing is responsive, it's not a solo—"

"You're not supposed to drool that much."

Every survival instinct Jeong Taeui possessed left his body. 

The voice was not from the video.

It came from above him.

He looked up very slowly.

Ilay Riegrow was looking down at him from over the partition wall. 

He had his forearms folded on the top of the divider, chin resting on them comfortably like he’d been there a while. White hair falling forward around his face while looking down at Taeui with an amused expression. Like a cat who found a mouse to play with. 

He had clearly stepped up onto something on the other side — probably the actual toilet.

Ilay had committed, physically to standing on a toilet to look over the wall at Taeui being a weird fuck.

He wants to fucking die.

The worst part wasn't getting caught watching kiss tutorials in a bathroom stall. The worst part was the guy critiquing his technique.

Ilay Riegrow.

The infamous troublemaker student whose name got said in whispers in the hallway. The person who Taeui's entire friend group had a collective, unspoken rule about: eyes forward, don't engage, definitely don't give him anything to work with. Why? Cause’ the guy is scary and weird as hell.

Taeui's phone was still playing the tutorial, very quietly. "breathe through your nose—"

Every single functioning cell in Taeui's body wanted to liquefy and drain through the floor. Right here. Right now. They would never find his body and they would never know why. Unless they found his phone with his shameful Youtube history.

"Shut up," he said. It came out low and rough in a way that had nothing to do with being intimidating and everything to do with his voice nearly giving out. "Mind your own fucking business."

"I was minding my own fucking business," Ilay said. "You were the one making sounds."

"Shut. Up."

"Little cutie sounds. Like hmm." He made the noise. He made it perfectly which was genuinely offensive. "I thought someone was jerking off in here. I was about to report it, hoo. Good thing I checked first, huh?"

"I swear to god shut up."

"Is that a tutorial?"

Taeui slammed his phone into his pocket.

"The volume was low," Ilay continued, unbothered. "I could only catch some of it. Your moaning sounds were louder. By the way, pro tip: Kissing doesn't need that much sound and drool unless both parties really want them."

"I'm going to need you to stop talking."

"You looked like you were eating your own hand."

"Shut the fuck up."

"The tilting was good though." Ilay's mouth curved just slightly. "You have potential."

"OH MY GOD" Taeui stood up so fast his elbow hit the stall door, "Ow, shit damn" unlocked it with way more force necessary and stepped out into the bathroom with whatever remained of his dignity, which was essentially nothing. He was running on fumes and humiliation at this point. 

His face was so hot he could feel his own pulse in his cheeks.

He went to the sink and rinsed both hands with cold water to help him do something not stupid. He stared at the drain and breathed through his nose and told himself very firmly that this was survivable. This was a survivable situation. Ilay Riegrow didn't talk to people. He observed them from a distance and said nothing to anyone. There was no gossip pipeline here—

The stall next door unlocked.

Taeui looked up at the mirror.

Ilay came out and stopped a few feet behind him, leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, and just looked at Taeui's reflection like he'd found a channel he was interested in. 

Taeui looked back at him in the mirror.

He'd never actually looked at Ilay. At least not like this, since their friend group’s default when regards to Ilay was do not engage. From far away you got the unique white hair and the don't-approach energy and that was usually enough information for most people. Up close, he was just a face. Okay, a beautiful face. But that beautiful face came attached to a body that made bad decisions and a personality that was apparently this. 

"So," Ilay said. "You've never kissed anyone."

"That's not what that was. You don't know anything."

"That's exactly what that was."

"I was reviewing techniques." Taeui turned the tap off. Grabbed paper towels. His brain was running hard. "In my free time. For future reference. To improve my existing kissing skills."

Ilay stared at him.

"Improvement, huh," he said.

"Yes."

"You were kissing your poor hand in a toilet stall," Ilay said. "For improvement of existing kissing skills."

"I was testing pressure calibration."

"Of what," Ilay said.

"Of a—" Taeui stopped. "You know what, forget it, this conversation is nonsense. I’m wasting my time with you."

"Your friends are going to grill you at lunch." Ilay said. "I heard the whole morning conversation."

Taeui blinked. "You were watching us?"

"Your table is loud. It wasn't optional."

"You could’ve put headphones in."

"I don't own headphones."

Taeui stared at him. "What kind of eighteen year old doesn't own headphones?"

"The kind who doesn't need them and where’s yours?"

Taeui ignored the question for his sanity, "That's the creepiest thing I've ever heard."

"You were kissing your hand five minutes ago."

“That was for the improvement of my skills.”

Ilay looked back.

This was strange. Ilay is strange in a way that is just genuinely unclassifiable. Like he operated on a different set of social rules and not because he was above them but because he'd simply never bothered to learn them. This was one of the reasons why their friend group never really talked to the man. He is very unpredictable.

And Taeui, for the love of god, cannot handle unpredictable shit right now.

“What’s your fucking problem?”

"The problem," Ilay said, "is that you don't have anything real to say. And Sungmin will know. He'll ask where and you'll say somewhere and he'll ask who and you'll say someone and by the fourth question your face will expose all your lies."

"My face doesn't do that."

"Tell that to yourself."

Taeui made himself stop doing whatever he was doing.

"Anyway, even if they can’t tell, Donghu will still see it," Ilay continued, "and then everyone will see it because they always check Donghu's face when they can't read yours. And then it's over."

Taeui said nothing.

Because that was scarily accurate. Ilay was completely accurate and he hated it.

"I'll figure something out," he said, lying through his teeth. His eyes probably gave him away.

"Says the man who was abusing his own hand."

"THAT WAS—" Taeui took a breath and lowered his voice. "That was a natural situation. Im concentrating for improving my skills. It has nothing to do with you being all creepy to me. Its none of your fucking busine—"

"Practice with my lips instead," Ilay said.

What in the actual fuck?

Okay, so. He just said that. That was a real sentence that Ilay Riegrow said with his actual mouth in this bathroom. I need to make sure I heard it properly.

“What?”

"I'm being kind enough to offer," Ilay added casually. Like he was just offering to lend Taeui a pen and not his lips. Good god.

"No," Taeui said.

"Okay."

"Absolutely not,” Taeui said while nodding.

"I said okay. Its your choice."

"I don't need your lips, I have my own."

"Hmm but you were kissing your hand, Taeui-ah. I was just providing you with better practice material."

"I WAS INTERNALIZING, OKAY? I NEED TO REMEMBER MY KISSING SKILLS." Taeui pointed at him. “My lips do not require your input. I need them for—”

"For what?" Ilay said, and there it was, the smallest edge of something in his voice. Weird scary Ilay is making its presence known.

"For…" Taeui's brain stalled. "For the talk with my friends later! That's what normal men do! You prepare and internalize and react the memory! Not everyone is weird like you." he gestured vaguely at Ilay, "You go around doing whatever it is you do with zero preparation, zero social awareness, zero brain—"

"At least I don't drool on myself."

"THAT WAS ONE TIME AND IT WAS JUST A SMALL AMOUNT"

"Right," Ilay said.

"Don't right me, you fucker."

"What's your plan then?" Ilay said, cutting through it cleanly. "Go out there and improvise? With what material? Timeline. Setting. Sungmin's going to ask how it felt and you're going to say good and he's going to ask what good means and you're going to say nice and—"

"I get it."

"—and then the whole thing falls apart."

"I said I FUCKING GET IT."

The bathroom was quiet.

Taeui looked at him.

Ilay looked back.

Up close, the white hair and handsome face was genuinely striking and distracting. Which is adding to the stress of not being able to read Ilay’s expression. Taeui was eighteen years old and his heart was doing something frankly embarrassing and he was going to attribute it entirely to the stress of the situation.

"Fine," Taeui said.

The word came out like it had fought him on the way. 

"If you say anything to anyone," Taeui said, "I will make your life genuinely horrible."

Ilay looked at him. "How?"

"I'm creative. I’ll make up something."

The ghost of a smile moved across Ilay's face for a second there and was gone, too quick to name.

"Stop smiling. If you breathe a word of this to anyone."

"I won't."

"I'm serious, Ilay."

"So am I."

Taeui looked at him for another second.

Then he crossed his arms. "One time. You do it once and then we go back to not existing to each other. That's the deal."

“Deal.” Ilay said and pushed off the wall and stepped forward.

Taeui had — in the half second available — built some kind of expectation that the kiss would be quick and clinical. Something matching the general energy of a person who'd just offered this like lending a pen.

Instead, Ilay raised his hand to the side of Taeui's jaw and kissed him.

And Taeui's brain went:

oh.

That was the whole thought. Just fucking oh. 

Because it was nothing like his hand, and he'd known that was going to be true and it still hit him like a truck. 

Ilay's mouth was warm.

Warm.That was the first thing that registered properly. Actually warm and that Ilay's mouth was soft. What the hell, why was it so soft? It was softer than Taeui had any framework to predict.

And the pressure was— God, it was just perfect. It was perfect in a way that made Taeui's whole chest do something complicated. Like Ilay had all the fucking time in the world and had decided to spend some of it here.

The way Ilay's lips moved was slow and easy. Taeui groaned slightly at the smallest pull at his lower lip and his breath stuttered out through his nose and he felt his shoulders drop. Like his body had been holding a shape it couldn't maintain anymore and his mouth softened without his permission and the kiss just deepened even more.

Oh, Taeui thought. Fuck, im in trouble

His hands didn't know what to do with themselves.

He registered them hanging there, completely useless, and put one on the edge of the sink because he needed something to hold and that was the least embarrassing available option. He was not going to grab Ilay. He was not going to give Ilay Riegrow any information about what was currently happening inside his mind.

Ilay moved and kept the pace slow and even. That soft lips moved against Taeui's in these small increments. Shifting, pressing and dragging.

Taeui could feel his lips were too stiff, he tried to relax them and match the pressure back. Ilay immediately responded like he'd been waiting for it. The moment he did something slotted into place and suddenly it made sense that no tutorial had managed to explain, because a tutorial was words and this was the actual thing.

Every time he did something right he felt it confirmed in the slight deepening of pressure, the way Ilay's lips answered back.

Taeui pressed forward. He didn't mean to but his traitor body just made a fucking decision without consulting him and pressed in closer, chasing the drag of Ilay’s lips. But the thing was, Ilay meets him every way and even adjusted himself to accommodate him.

The pressure deepened just slightly, warmer, and Taeui felt the shift go through him from his mouth all the way down to somewhere embarrassingly central and his heartbeat which had already been too loud, swelled louder and louder and LOUDER.

What is happening, Taeui thought. What is actually happening to me right now?

Ilay pulled back.

Just barely. The distance between them stayed small. Close enough that Taeui could feel the warmth still and close enough that they could breathe each other’s air.

"Tongue?" Ilay said.

The word was barely sound but it was warm and more like something Taeui felt than heard but it landed at the center of his chest and radiated outward.

His brain went completely blank for a full second.

Tongue, his brain repeated. He said tongue. 

He grabbed the front of Ilay's collar and pulled him back in.

He didn't think about it. He just did it.

Oh no, said the part of Taeui's brain that was still operational. Oh no oh no oh no

The rest of him didn't care.

The kiss was different the second time. Slower but fuller somehow, which didn't make sense, because slower implied control and Taeui had none of that left. Taeui felt the first careful brush of Ilay's tongue against his lower lip. He made an embarrassing sound that he was going to pretend didn't happen and then his brain turned to mush because Ilay did it again. 

The same slow drag against his lower lip and then he pulled Taeui's tongue between his own gently and sucked, just slightly. Taeui's hand tightened in Ilay’s collar because he needed to hold onto something or he was going to actually lose his mind in this bathroom—

His mouth opened wider on instinct.

Ilay made a low sound against his mouth and came in slow again. Tongue tracing along Taeui's, exploring like he had something to map out and intended to take his time doing it. Taeui's brain produced one single coherent thought:

Oh. Oh, that's what that's—

And then the thought didn't finish because Ilay shifted the angle, chin tilting, and the tongue went deeper and Taeui sucked it. He followed the movement, matched it, his tongue moving against Ilay's and finding the rhythm.

When Ilay pulled back even a fraction, just to breathe. Taeui's hand at his collar yanked him straight back in like Ilay isn't even allowed to breathe.

Ilay actually laughed into the kiss at that, a short huff against Taeui's mouth, and the fucking audacity of it should have embarrassed Taeui into stopping. Instead it lit something under his skin. He licked into the laugh, found Ilay's tongue with his own and pressed, slowly and insistently. He felt Ilay's breath catch.

Good, something feral and unfamiliar in him thought. Good. I want him as wrecked as I am.

The sound of his own heartbeat in his ears was so loud he was faintly amazed Ilay couldn't hear it.

Ilay's hand moved from his jaw to the back of his head, fingers sliding into his hair, and drew him in slightly closer, like there even was a closer to be had and as if Taeui hadn't already closed every distance there was.

He became aware of this but he did not let go.

When Ilay finally eased back, just enough to drag his mouth along Taeui's jaw, just enough air for Taeui's head to clear by half a degree, Taeui's whole body protested before his pride could stop it. He turned, chasing, catching the corner of Ilay's mouth, then his bottom lip, pulling it gently with his teeth because if Ilay got to tease then so could he, and felt Ilay go still for one full second before exhaling something rough against his cheek and giving in, turning back into it.

He was matching every small shift Ilay made, chasing it, which was supposed to be the point, that was the whole objective of learning how to kiss he reminded himself dimly.

Except there was no version of this experience that explained why his pulse was in his throat or why he'd just bitten Ilay's lip like that was a normal thing two people did for practice.

The side effect was that it felt less like practice and more like obsession.

When Ilay pulled back this time, there was actual distance. Taeui stood there with his eyes closed for a second, maybe two, just waiting for his own brain to return from wherever it had gone.

He opened his eyes.

Ilay was looking at him.

His heart was so loud. His whole face felt warm in a way that had nothing to do with embarrassment anymore and everything to do with the man in front of him. 

"Think you can brag about your experience now?" Ilay said while wiping Taeui's mouth with his fingers.

His voice was even. Taeui's was not going to be, so he took one breath. Let it out slowly.

He let his hand fall from Ilay's collar (he'd still been holding it, he noted) and blinked twice, and took stock. His heart was doing too much. His face was warm. His head felt slightly like a snow globe someone had shaken and set down.

He licked his lips without thinking.

The taste was different, not his, and his brain logged it and he filed it under absolutely not right now and swallowed.

"Yes," he said. "Thank you, Ilay."

Ilay looked at him for a moment and then let out a small smile.

"No problem," he said.

He turned and walked out. The door swung shut behind him with a soft sound.

Taeui stood in the quiet.

His heart was so enormous in his chest. He could feel it in his wrists, his throat, the tips of his ears. He had just been kissed — devoured — and the person who had done it was already gone and the bathroom was just a bathroom again.

He turned to the mirror.

His lips.

Oh, his lips.

Red. Swollen. Undeniably, visibly, thoroughly kissed. The proof of it is right there on his face.

He stared at himself.

And then he grinned. Wide and stupid and completely involuntary. 

That, he thought. Is one hell of a kiss story.

He fixed his collar. Ran a hand through his hair. Pressed his lips together once — they were still warm — and walked out.

He was twenty minutes late. Sungmin saw him coming from across the cafeteria.

"JEONG. Finally. Sit down."

"Relax, I'm sitting."

"You were gone forever."

"Did you miss me?" Taeui dropped into his seat, grabbed his tray, picked up his chopsticks. "That's sweet, Sungmin."

"I'm going to kill you—"

"Your face is red," Jinho said, squinting at him across the table with gentle concern.

"It's warm here."

"It's kind of cold though?"

"Jinho. Let it go. Let the man eat," Donghu said, which was hmm. Donghu, actually advocating for him, is suspicious, which meant Donghu was just protecting the interrogation for after the food, which was somehow more threatening.

Taeui ate. Let the table do its own thing. Jinho was recounting something about a class that had gone wrong and everyone was half-listening, Chanwoo was on his phone, and Beomsu was eating while complaining about the side dishes.

Taeui ate his sushi and felt the story settle into place in his chest like it had always been there.

He was ready when Sungmin turned.

Four minutes. Sungmin's personal best.

"OKAY," Sungmin said, rotating his whole body to face Taeui while setting his chopsticks down with intent. "We're coming back to you."

"Are we?" Taeui said, still chewing with his swollen lips.

"First kiss. Right now. No bell to save you."

"Yeah, Taeui, seriously," Jinho said, immediately rotating. "You escaped this morning. Twice actually. The bell and then the bathroom—"

"I didn't escape."

"Yeah, you FLED."

"I had somewhere to be."

"You had a toilet break. Which doesn't count." Jinho pointed with his chopsticks. "Everyone went. We all went with our embarrassing stories. You're the only one left. First kiss. Right now."

Taeui set his chopsticks down.

He looked at Sungmin. Then Jinho. Then let his eyes slowly move around the circle, and then he leaned back slightly and crossed his arms.

"Okay," he said.

The table went quiet.

"My first kiss was recent," Taeui said.

"Ohhhh! How recent?" Sungmin said.

"Like. Very recent."

"How very recent—"

"Today," Taeui said.

Dead silence.

Jinho's mouth fell open.

"TODAY?" Sungmin's voice went up by about six registers.

"Yeah."

"TODAY, today? As in today? As in the today that is currently happening right now?"

"That's what today means, Sungmin—"

"Who?" Jinho said immediately.

“Oh my god!” Beomsu said.

"WHO. WHO. Right now. Name. Details. Everything." Sungmin was gripping the edge of the table. "Who kissed you or who did you kiss?"

"I'm not giving you a name."

"JEONG—"

"They're from our class," Taeui said, and he picked up his water and took a sip casually, and he could feel the table completely imploding with contained energy. "We ran into each other. We talked a little."

"You kissed a classmate!?!"

"That's it? You talked a little and then WAM BAM"

"And then they kissed me," Taeui said.

"THEY KISSED YOU—"

"They initiated, yeah." He shrugged, easy. "I mean, look at me."

"I'M GOING TO ACTUALLY KILL YOU." Sungmin stood up slightly from his chair. "WHO WOULD DARE KISS YOU IN OUR CLASS?"

"I'm not hard to look at, Sungmin-ah."

"NOBODY'S SAYING YOU'RE HARD TO—this isn't ABOUT—" Sungmin pressed his hands flat on the table and took a breath. “I need to breathe.”

"How long?" Chanwoo said, looking up from his phone. 

"Didn't check. It felt like a while though." Taeui considered.

"Was it a peck or—" Jinho started.

"No," Taeui said, instantly, almost offended on principle. 

"Then what?"

"It was a proper kiss," Taeui said, and the word landed with some weight behind it because it was true, because he had the real thing to put behind it. "A real make-out type of kiss. The kind they put in movies."

"Okay, settle down slut."

“But its true,” Taeui sighs dreamily. “You just had to be there.”

"Is it...wet?"

Taeui smirked,"What do you think?"

"Okay.Tongue," Sungmin said, controlled. "Yes or no."

Taeui met his eyes.

"We battled them like swords," he said.

The sound Jinho made was inhuman. Beomsu choked on his water. Donghu looked at him with an expression other than his bitch face. Even Chanwoo discarded his phone.

"Swords? How did you even—" Sungmin sounded personally victimized. " And immediately? On the first one? Straight to tongue?!"

"They were enthusiastic," Taeui said as modestly as possible. "What can I say? I bring it out in people." 

"What the fuck?"

"I don't know what to tell you, I'm apparently very kissable—"

"I went to fifth date for tongue!" Sungmin gestured at himself, outraged. "I waited! I was respectful! I had built anticipation for months—"

"Yeah, well, they didn't want to wait," Taeui said simply. "They kissed me again right after the first one. They wanted more." He tilted his head. "Apparently can't get enough of me. I'm irresistible, what can I say."

The table completely detonated.

"YOU'RE IRRESISTIBLE—" Jinho was standing now. Fully standing. "WHEN DID YOU BECOME THIS DERANGED."

"YOU ABSOLUTE WILD MAN!" Sungmin was pointing at him with both chopsticks.

"God! I want my friend back."

"I've always been like this," Taeui picked up a sushi and ate it. 

"YOU HAVE NEVER IN THREE YEARS—"

"You just weren’t paying attention to me enough. My appeal has dimmed because I’m always with you guys."

"SHUT UP! You were kissed twice!" Sungmin was pointing with both hands. "On the same fucking day! It means same meeting! That's not normal you absolute slut. How are you this calm right now?!"

"I'm a calm person."

"YOU ARE NOT A CALM PERSON. NEVER IN MY LIFE HAVE I SEEN YOU SO CALM."

"My brother is calm though?"

"Taeui, how did you manage two kisses in a day?" Bonghu asked, finally curious.

"I let them kiss me again," Taeui continued generously, like he was doing the world a favor by even discussing it, "because I'm not a monster and they asked very politely."

"THEY ASKED FOR MORE?!?!"

"Well, they implied," Taeui said, "but the implication was very clear—"

“YOU SLUT!” Sungmin shrieked.

"Ow! My lips are still a little swollen," Taeui said, and watched the entire table lose all remaining composure. "Also it was more than twice, I lost count honestly. I stopped keeping score somewhere around three."

Jinho sat back down because his legs gave out. Beomsu's eyes were wide. Chanwoo had fully leaned over the table and was looking at Taeui with something that might be religious awe.

"YOUR LIPS!" Jinho suddenly grabbed Taeui's face with both hands, squishing his cheeks, staring. "OH MY GOD your lips are swollen, look, LOOK—"

"LET GO YOU FUCKER."

"GUYS LOOK AT HIS LIPS, HE'S NOT LYING."

"DON'T ANNOUNCE MY LIPS TO THE CAFETERIA—"

"THEY'RE GENUINELY SWOLLEN, TAEUI, WHEN DID? wait, the bathroom—" Jinho's eyes went massive. "THE BATHROOM—"

"Let go of my face!"

"IT WAS THE FUCKING BATHROOM."

"Shut up Jinho."

Jinho released him. Taeui straightened up. His face was definitely red but he was grinning and he couldn't fully stop it, which was fine. Everything was normal, Taeui smiled at things all the time, this proved nothing.

"Tongue on day one," Donghu said.

Taeui turned to him.

Donghu was looking at him with an expression that had something new in it, like he'd recalculated something and wasn't sure yet where the number landed. But it surely went somewhere expensive.

"That's genuinely wild," Donghu said. The highest possible form of endorsement from this person.

"Thank you, Donghu," Taeui said, inclining his head like he was accepting an award. 

Sungmin pointed at Taeui's mouth like he can’t move on. “They are," Sungmin said. "They actually woah. Your lips are so plump now. I'm looking right at it. I can SEE the evidence." 

"Yeah," he pursed his swollen lips for more effect.

"That's insane!" Sungmin covered his face with one hand, peeking through his fingers like he couldn't look directly at this much injustice. "Man. Man. I had the most careful, respectful, well-timed first kiss and you just…" he waved at Taeui. "Got tongued and they came back for more and your lips are swollen and you're just sitting here eating sushi like its NOTHING!"

"It's good sushi," Taeui said. “And I’m hungry.”

"I hate you," Sungmin said while meaning the exact opposite.

"You're obsessed with me," Taeui said.

"I'm going to fight you."

"You'd lose."

"SOMEONE TELL HIM HE'D LOSE." Sungmin looked around the table.

"You'd lose," Donghu said.

"WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?"

"His, right now," Donghu said while pointing at Taeui.

Taeui pointed back at Donghu for his alliance. Donghu almost smiled. Almost.

"Who ARE you," Jinho was saying, staring at Taeui like he'd never seen him before. "Like. Who are you? We've known each other for three years. THREE YEARS. And you've been what, sitting on this?"

"I didn't have anything to sit on until today." Taeui said with a calm face.

"What the hell happened in that bathroom?"

"DAMN YOU! ON THE DAY YOU HAVE SOMETHING IT'S THIS?!" Jinho gestured wildly. "Tongue-ing?! More than three kisses!? Most of us had perfectly normal awkward first kisses and you skip straight to porn?"

"My first kiss was good," Taeui said, and he let himself smile, just a little. "I know about y'alls but I’m not sorry mine was good."

"I hate everything," Jinho said, but he was grinning.

"You're insane," Beomsu said, quietly, with genuine admiration. "I practiced on my elbow for two months and you just went wild today."

"Different paths," Taeui said graciously.

"I'm going to need you to stop being like this." Sungmin pointed at him. "This confidence is not good for our mental health."

"I've always been confident."

"You were nervous just this morning."

"I was not—" Taeui stopped. "I was not nervous. I was just daydreaming."

"YOU WERE SWEATING AND EVASIVE."

"Hmm. I don’t remember that, sorry."

"JEONG—"

Taeui laughed loudly. He couldn't help it. The table kind of reset around it, Sungmin throwing a napkin at him, Beonsu laughing at Sungmin, Jinho still shaking his head, Chanwoo eating again but was still looking at him. Donghu is with his resting bitch face again.

He was in the middle of saying something while Sungmin had launched into a full review of how this was unfair and statistically impossible when Taeui glanced up naturally, looking around the cafeteria.

And went completely still.

Ilay was at the table across the room. He'd been clearly there the whole time — alone, which was normal for Ilay, leaning back in his chair, one leg crossed. He had a lollipop, white stick between his fingers, holding it loosely. He was looking directly at Taeui.

And smiling.

The expression of someone who had heard everything. Who had caught every word of what they’re talking about and was deeply, privately entertained.

Taeui's sentence died in his throat.

His face went hot. The full-body heat of someone caught and that was somehow worse because its Ilay.

Because Ilay was the entire reason the bragging existed in the first place and now Ilay was sitting right there watching the bragging happen. 

Ilay raised one eyebrow.

Taeui's mouth twitched.

He tried to stop it. He genuinely tried. But his face was not cooperating because something was pulling at the corner of his mouth and Ilay was still looking at him and the lollipop was back between his lips now and

Taeui smiled back.

Helplessly, stupidly and completely involuntary.

Ilay looked satisfied. He looked away, back to whatever he'd been doing.

"Taeui? Hello? Earth to Jeong?"

Taeui blinked. Looked back at the table.

Sungmin was squinting at him. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing," Taeui said.

"You were smiling at nothing?"

"I smile sometimes, Sungmin, I'm a happy person."

"You looked like—" Sungmin turned to look across the cafeteria. "Who's over there?"

"Nobody," Taeui said, and grabbed Sungmin by the shoulder to physically redirect him. "What were you saying about your second kiss? I feel like we never heard that story."

The redirect worked because Sungmin's favorite topic was Sungmin, and in thirty seconds he was back in full swing, and Jinho was asking follow-up questions, and Beomsu was looking mildly traumatized but engaged, and Chanwoo was back on his phone.

Taeui ate his sushi.

He did not look across the cafeteria again.

He didn't need to.

He already knew Ilay was still smiling.