Chapter Text
Beomgyu starts to think about it while helping his baby cousin make a school project, with dried glue peeling on his palms and glitter under his fingernails. His cousin pushes two pieces of paper together, of colors that go terrifically with each other, carefully selected to match, but they won’t stick. The glue―the same glue coating Beomgyu’s hands like a second skin―doesn’t hold.
“It doesn’t want to stick,” his cousin huffs, “I think it was too convenient.”
“What was?” Beomgyu asks, and his cousin holds up the papers. They’d found them at the very bottom of the pile, pressed together by some form of attraction Beomgyu hadn't yet learned in school.
“It was too easy. If it’s too easy,” his cousin muses, picking up a paper that doesn’t quite go with either of the ones he’s already holding and pushing it on the glue instead. It sticks.
“-it doesn’t work.”
Beomgyu hums in response, “Got it,” and goes back to work on the writing. The words stick with him for a while, as he gets kicked out for a line too long and leaves for his boyfriend’s house, Taehyun opening the door and pulling him inside.
As Taehyun helps him out of his coat, Beomgyu thinks, Easy , and pauses. Taehyun nudges him, coaxing his arm out, and Beomgyu forces himself to move..
“Let’s watch a movie this time, Hyung,” Taehyun says as he puts the coat up, “I have shrimp chips.”
Beomgyu mutters, with no real bite, “You know I can’t eat those.”
“More for me,” Taehyun fires back, frowning when Beomgyu forces his lips up into a pout, “Don’t worry, I have other things.”
"You're so easy to read, Taehyunnie," Beomgyu laughs, high, as he steps out of his shoes. Easy doesn't work.
"No," Taehyun pulls him away towards the living room. Beomgyu shudders. "I just dumb myself down around you."
"What? No you don't? I'm older than you," Beomgyu protests. It's all so easy ( again ) to fall into their routine. By the time his butt hits the couch, television in front of him and Taehyun at his side, he's already pushed the thought of it down.
But not forgotten.
When he finally comes back to it, lets himself consider the thought again, it's when he's sitting in front of his computer, phone buzzing with Taehyun sending him a variety of cat pictures that don't do anything to improve his mood. The zero in his gradebook―not even half points, just a full failure―is the first real one in his four years of college. The deep curl of dissatisfaction in his gut, purring nauseatingly, is not unfamiliar.
The project had been easy, or so he'd thought. A simple thing. He’d worked on it for a weekend and felt happy enough when finishing it to go out for a drink that evening.
Finding out now, so much later, that his pride had been for nothing sets him on edge.
Beomgyu starts crafting an email to his professor as his phone rings, vibrating insistently against the table hard enough that he can feel it in his fingertips. He answers it with his pinkie, a half-hearted push against the screen.
"Hyung," Taehyun says immediately, low, comforting voice fuzzy across the phone, "Do you want to talk about it?"
Beomgyu doesn't. He should, probably; but there's something about the knife of self-deprecation that makes him think if he hears any pity from his boyfriend Beomgyu will turn the blade on him, instead. So he grabs the phone and turns on the camera, lodging it in the corner of his laptop.
"Not this time," He answers as Taehyun's face loads, shiny with moisturizer. His skincare headband is on. Beomgyu hasn't even washed his face. "I'm just gonna write him an email and figure it out. How was your day?"
"Are you sure?" Taehyun insists. Beomgyu nods at him, tilting his head, "Okay then."
"I asked how was your day, Taehyunnie," Beomgyu repeats, voice grinding past his teeth, "Was it good? We didn't get to eat together this time. I can bring you some food in a bit."
Taehyun leans away from his phone, face pensive, "I'd like that. Is it bad if I say I had a really nice day? I missed you, though."
"You're allowed to be happy," Beomgyu laughs. It's a real one, at least, "What kind of boyfriend would I be if I got angry at you for that?"
"A dumb one," Taehyun answers automatically, "But you aren't that kind of dumb."
A fond little tickle burns behind Beomgyu’s lungs, making him wheeze a little. Taehyun looks serious, earnest in the upturn of his brows and the way he grabs his phone to look at the screen clearly. Beomgyu winks at him.
"Yeah. Have some faith in me, Taehyun," Beomgyu bites his lip, writing a few idle sentences before erasing them all. "Ah, I can't focus.”
"Take your time, Gyu," Taehyun pipes up. Beomgyu hears him uncap a bottle with a tiny click. "You know?"
"I know," Beomgyu mutters. Taehyun hums, followed by another click that makes the line crackle.
"I know you know that," he teases, "I was going to talk about something else. You know, Yeonjun-Hyung took Kai out for lunch today."
"He did?" Beomgyu blinks. He feels his ears turn red as Taehyun peeks at him through the camera and laughs at the shape of his mouth, "I just didn't think he'd do it. Last I heard he was still trying to get Soobin to go to Lotte World."
"I think his plan fell through," Taehyun shrugs, "Kai was texting me the entire time about it. I don't think he expected it, either."
"I don't know why they don't just all talk about it," Beomgyu groans, rolling his head back, "It's obvious. It'd be so-"
Easy, he almost says, but the word catches in his throat. Taehyun just waves his hand, none the wiser, "I know, right? But I think they have to go at their own pace. If they do it too fast they could end up messing up.”
"Y-Yeah," Beomgyu swallows. He sucks in air through his teeth, flinching when it cools them down and makes them ache, "Slow and steady."
"I'm glad we didn't have any problems," Taehyun takes off his headband, blonde fringe falling down to cover his overgrown roots. "How many days, is it?"
Beomgyu's screen freezes at the same time his face does, both waiting for Taehyun to find his answer, "Oh, fuck. Three thousand, almost.”
"Three thousand ?" Beomgyu tries to grasp it, "Eight years is three thousand days? What the hell, that's like, half our lives."
"Closer to a third," Taehyun raises an eyebrow at him, unfrozen by exiting the other app. "You're twenty-four, not sixteen.”
“Still a long time,” Beomgyu fires back, but his head is spinning. Three thousand. “We’re the only people we’ve dated.”
“I actually dated a girl for like, a month in elementary,” Taehyun shrugs, looking at Beomgyu through the screen with his eyes wide and inscrutable, “It was only because she asked, though. I asked you, that time.”
“You were a baby,” Beomgyu says, then sits up straighter, “Oh my god, you were fifteen. A kid. I can’t believe it―we started dating before you could drive .”
“You hadn’t gotten your permit either,” Taehyun murmurs dryly, leaning on his bathroom counter. It must be uncomfortable, to be standing while they talk, “You kept complaining about it. Taehyun-ah, I can’t take you out today, my mom won’t drive us -”
“I did not sound like that,” Beomgyu presses the side of his mouth together, face filling with a blush. “I can’t believe I got asked out by a kid . Snooty fifteen-year-old you.”
“You said yes to that kid , Gyu- ssi ,” Taehyun slurs his ssang-shiot s in the same way his yoo s turn to eu s when saying Beomgyu’s name sometimes. It annoys the hell out of Soobin, Beomgyu knows; Taehyun says if he’s understood, it’s good enough.
“Would you rather I hadn’t?” Beomgyu huffs out before thinking too hard about it. When his brain registers his own words, something cold grabs his bowels and twists. Taehyun’s mouth falls open, bobbing a couple times.
“No? What kind of question is that? Would you rather I hadn’t ―If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t be dating right now.”
“We wouldn’t,” Beomgyu echoes. There are ice cubes in his blood, slowing the flow to a crawl in his body, “Where would we be, if I’d said no? What would we be?”
Taehyun goes quiet. The silence bears the weight of eight years, of You’re pretty to I like you to I love you .
“Nothing, I guess,” Taehyun finally says, “I wouldn’t have spoken to you again.”
Beomgyu swallows down the words that try to climb onto his tongue. He’s not even quite sure what they are, anyway. Instead, he leans forward and looks past his phone onto his computer screen.
Professor Yu , and then blank space. Possibilities of what to fill it with flit through his mind. Paths to take. Infinite possibilities. The moment he presses send, all of them will be gone except the one that will stem from his words.
“I’m glad you said yes,” Taehyun interrupts his train of thought, tapping on the screen, “Who cares what I’d be doing right now if you hadn’t?”
“I’m sure that you would care,” Beomgyu tries, static bouncing around in his head, “Whoever you’d be dating, too.”
“Well, I’m dating you,” Taehyun says uncertainly. Beomgyu doesn’t know if he’s supposed to hear a question there. “Not―whoever I would be. Plus, who knows what kind of problems I’d have with other people? Dating you is easy, Hyung.”
But , Beomgyu thinks, slow like honey, watching helplessly as Taehyun changes the subject. The ice cubes in his blood inch towards his brain, making him shiver. But, easy doesn’t work. Easy never works .
They say goodnight a few minutes later, Taehyun having finished his skincare routine and Beomgyu having not finished the email he has to send. In the end, he never goes to get food for them, and Beomgyu goes to sleep hungry.
“You said what ?” Soobin groans, setting down his cup with a crack of plastic, “Oh my God, Beomgyu, you’re stupid .”
“I was just speculating,” Beomgyu says, shrinking down in his chair. The coffee shop is empty, but he still feels a million eyes on him. Waiting for his next move, “I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”
“You basically told your boyfriend you regret dating him,” Soobin massages his temples, taking a deep inhale through his nose, “You don’t, though, right?”
Beomgyu’s mouth flaps uselessly for a few seconds, “I--No! I mean, I love him. I was just wondering if maybe he did.”
“If he regrets it?” Soobin furrows his brows, thick and unbrushed. He must’ve not met with Yeonjun yet, Beomgyu realizes. Yeonjun’s insistence that Soobin gets his brows under control is distinctive in that it makes him look less like the college student he isn’t anymore and closer to a professional.
“Kind of?” Beomgyu picks up his coat, fiddling with the zipper, “I mean, he was fifteen . It was his second relationship, and he’s still with me. Me .”
“Uh huh,” Soobin responds, “You technically have less experience than him, dude. Wait, who else has he dated?”
Beomgyu ignores him, “That’s like, not even high school sweethearts? Junior high sweethearts. Barely-pubescent lovers. A pre-voting age affair.”
“Christ, do you even hear yourself?” Soobin groans, “Most people consider being together a long time good . First loves, and all that jazz.”
“Jazz is way too close to jizz for my liking,” Beomgyu muses aloud, before sobering, “No, but it’s just--Do you think he ever feels like he’s missing out? He’s a fucking catch, I’m sure if I wasn’t here he’d have a million people lining up to date him.”
Soobin narrows his eyes at him, tensing up and looming over him from across the table. “Choi Beomgyu,” he says, “Are you going to say you’re looking for other people without asking him if it’s okay?”
“What? No! ” Beomgyu squawks. The suggestion takes away his appetite, “Hell no. I’d never do that to him--to anyone. Do I look like a cheater to you?”
“No…” Soobin twists his mouth up, “Then what do you mean?”
“I mean that Tyun and I have been dating for a third of our lives,” Beomgyu snaps, jittery, vision blurry. “So we don’t know what it’s like to not date each other, not really. What if we rushed into things, Hyung?”
Soobin gapes at him, before his eyes tilt down at the corners, “Gyu…”
“You get it?” Beomgyu breathes out, shoulders sagging, “It feels like I can't tell if we're together because we want to be, or because it's convenient to."
"I think you're thinking too hard about it," Soobin soothes, voice gentle, "God, where did you even get this idea?"
Beomgyu just shakes his head. He takes a sip of his coffee to try to relax the tightness in his throat, but chokes on it with the taste of ash on his tongue. Soobin stands up to help him, rubbing his back as Beomgyu tries to breathe.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Beomgyu coughs out, swallowing hard, “Please.”
“Okay,” Soobin bites his bottom lip, sitting down again with a final rub of Beomgyu’s back and gathering his hands up in his. Beomgyu feels every centimeter of difference in their hand sizes. He is too small. Too small for this. “Okay, got it. What now, then?”
Beomgyu stifles another cough, choking it down back into his lungs, and says, “Tell me about your day.”
Soobin nods uneasily, leaning back and starting, both of them pretending like Beomgyu can hear him through the static.