Chapter Text
This is the first time the group’s had a break in a while. And after exhausting himself from gaming day in and out, Beomgyu decided maybe he should go out with some people he hasn’t seen in a while.
His childhood friend, Mingi. They’ve hung out only a handful of times after Beomgyu debuted and it’s a miracle the guy hasn’t given up on their friendship yet. When he called him to catch up, he thought he would be in for a fun and fulfilling day out.
He didn’t expect to be confronted by assumptions of his relationship status.
“Oh. By the way. Congratulations on your relationship. It’s real brave of you Beomgyu.” Mingi had said. And chugged down his soju like he had just simply stated the affairs of current news.
Beomgyu leaned back in his seat and sneered at him, “Ha. Ha.”
“Yeah, I’m serious. I’m really happy you’re starting to prioritise your happiness now. I know how important the group is to you so I know it must have been a big step to open yourself up to love. I mean I don’t know if you’re in love-“
“Wait, what are you talking about?” Beomgyu straightened up so fast that the legs of his chair slightly screeched back.
Mingi looked up at him, tongs held in mid-air, paused from flipping the meats on the grill. “You know. Your. Relationship.”
Beomgyu cocked his eyebrow at him.
“You are in a relationship, right?” Mingi felt like he was repeating himself for a while now.
“What?” Beomgyu’s infamous confused and offended expression was in full force now.
Before blowing up at him with all sorts of questions, he took a minute to breathe and think. It must be those Internet rumours. Someone online is always shipping him with random korean idols.
He schooled his eyebrows back to their default state. “No”, he responded almost (very) defeatedly. “I am not dating Ryujin.”
“What? No. I’m talking about Kai.”
“WHAT?” Beomgyu was standing up now. He added hesitantly, “Huening?”
Mingi stood up too to bow to the nearby people in the restaurant as an apology.
He turned to Beomgyu and whispered, “Yeah.”
They both sat back down.
“And you’re not joking?”
“No? Why would I be. Bro, didn’t you hear my sincere and vulnerable speech I made to you five seconds ago? I literally said I-“
“Yeah. Yeah. I know.” Beomgyu brought his hand up to shush him.
He looked away. Yes, he wasn’t expecting his friend to accuse him of being in a relationship with his group member. Accuse him of dating a random girl, sure. But someone from his group?
It should be more surprising for him to hear. He should be freaking out and shouting comments of disbelief, flailing his arms and body around, like a typical Beomgyu tantrum. Because it’s weird that he would ever assume Beomgyu would do something like that.
Kai is his friend. One of his closest friends. All of TXT are his closest friends in fact. No. They’re more like his soulmates. They’re also his work colleagues.
He would never- He just would never.
“No.” Beomgyu rubbed his hands, placing them in his lap. He was still looking away.
“What made you even think this?” He finally turned to face Mingi.
“Oh.” Mingi’s eyes widened.
“Oh?”
“Oh.” He repeated. “I can’t really tell you.”
“Wait, why not?”
“Well, I just can’t. It would expose the person that told me.” He’s scratching the back of his head now. It was also his turn to look away apparently.
Beomgyu slammed his hand on the table, “WHO TOLD YOU?”
“NO ONE. NO ONE. JEEZ, BEOMGYU.” Mingi placed the fallen cup back to its upright position and grabbed some tissues to wipe up the mess.
“I swear to God, Mingi if you don’t tell me who it is right this millisecond I will tear your-“
“Beomgyu, I can’t. I can’t. It would ruin- Beomgyu. It would be more embarrassing for you to hear who told me than it is for the person to be exposed. Please. This is the one thing- I just can’t tell you this. Beomgyu, please.” He cradled Beomgyu’s hands.
—
Beomgyu’s scrolling on Tiktok to distract himself from his thoughts. (He made his own secret TikTok account). But he finds after scrolling for thirty minutes, that this mundane activity might actually be helping him focus on them even more.
A video of a girl group performance. Wow. Reminds him of when he thought Mingi was accusing him of dating Ryujin but it was actually KAI. A cooking video. Wow. Reminds him of when he went out to eat with his friend and got accused of dating KAI. Wow. A video of him and Kai. Reminds him of when- WHAT.
He paused the video before it played any further. He had stopped on a still of him hugging Kai. And he knows exactly where it’s from. It’s the TO DO episode where Beomgyu asked if anyone would date him if they met him outside of the company and if he was a girl.
He remembered being quite surprised that Kai walked out of his booth to confirm that he would. The hug was Beomgyu giving his thanks to Kai.
To what would become probably the biggest regret of his life, he pressed on the video to play it.
He tried to control his breathing as the video progressed. Okay well, the sappy song the fan added to the video wasn’t helping at all. The chorus of the song was reached when Kai walked out of his box, which watching made Beomgyu feel all sorts of emotions. The main one being gratefulness obviously because he had really thought no one was going to walk out for him.
Of course they had to zoom in on Kai’s face. He looked… Well, it makes sense that he’d look embarrassed but. He also looked vulnerable. When Kai has feelings, he isn’t afraid to let it show on his face. All the feelings that aren’t negative that is. Beomgyu knows that.
If it was Beomgyu, he would have annoyed the person into telling him how grateful they are that he would hypothetically date them. Or he would boast about how generous he is with his kindness to other’s feelings. Just any dramatic show of his personality to the camera. For the fans.
For the fans.
Beomgyu forgot that Kai had tried to shush him so that he wouldn’t expose him to the members. Again, if that was Beomgyu and he wanted to show people that he was embarrassed about admitting to something, then he would have expressed a greater exaggeration of his emotions to make for an entertaining watch. The way he shushed him makes it look like Kai was genuinely embarrassed.
Seeing this happen from a perspective other than Beomgyu’s makes him feel a certain way.
The way Kai leaned into his hug as well…
“Hi.”
Beomgyu yelped and almost jumped out of his bed. He instead hit his head against the wall.
“You good?”
It’s Kai. In the flesh. God, watching that video made him feel like he was a fan for a second and not an actual member of world renowned K-pop group, TXT.
Kai looked up at him patiently. He had already made himself comfortable underneath the blanket, resting his head on his hand that was propped up by his elbow.
Beomgyu never noticed how piercing his gaze was until that video. Which was as he expected, the worst decision of his life.
“Yeah.” Beomgyu looked around and attempted to busy himself with arranging the position of his pillows. Yeah, this definitely won’t be suspicious.
“Can I watch what you were watching?” Kai pointed to the phone Beomgyu dropped on his bed.
“What?”
What.
“Did you see what I was watching?” Beomgyu held his breath.
“No. What were you watching?”
Beomgyu exhaled.
Kai sat up to get closer to Beomgyu.
That was the one thing Beomgyu did not want right now.
He scooched an inch further away. “Nothing.”
Kai smiled like he knew that Beomgyu knew that he knew he was better than that. “Nothing?”
“Nothing.” Beomgyu repeated, shrugging his shoulders.
The moment Beomgyu’s eyes caught a whisper of movement from Kai’s hand, he snatched his phone away from him.
Kai’s hand paused in the air, “Nothing?”
“Listen. I spoke my truth. It’s your choice whether you want to believe it or not. But like I said, I was watching. Nothing.”
Beomgyu leveled his eyes on Kai. To which Kai reciprocated with immense ease.
Eventually, Kai looked away to admit his surrender but still inched closer to Beomgyu.
Beomgyu responded to this again by moving a bit further away. He had one asscheek meeting air.
Kai raised his eyebrow a little at Beomgyu’s antics but clearly did not feel suspicious enough to pursue the matter further.
Kai turned and stepped off the bed to walk out of the room.