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Hoseok always felt a little bit like summer to Taehyung. He was always warm, often intense, and being near him was inexplicably very like laying out, half in the shade, letting his whole body just take in the glow.
The first time they kissed, Taehyung wondered if he'd dreamt it. Imagined all the things between them, all the little moments that felt so fucking big when he stacked them all together.
Drops in a bucket.
"I bet I could drown," Taehyung mumbled between kisses, lips heavy.
Hoseok just shook his head, smiled that easy smile of his. "I wouldn't let you." Dragged a hand along his cheek, fingers slipping into his hair, guiding him closer. "I've got you," he said, quiet. Whispered really. They were so close.
Taehyung wanted to mumble something about how he didn't think Hoseok could stop him. How he wanted to breathe him in anyway, even if it seemed — unwise. Let his lungs fill up and just sink into the feeling.
Hoseok kissed him again.
Taehyung tried to stop thinking.
“How’s your new friend?” Taehyung’s mother asked, skim reading some nursing article or other. She was always a little busy, multitasking, glasses perched on her nose, a pen behind her ear, but she still made time for him and Taehyung was glad.
She’d been his first best friend, his rock, someone he told everything to.
“He’s good,” Taehyung said, looking at her from over the top of his phone. He pressed it to his nose to hide his smile.
“He’s on the track team, right?” she asked.
“Mhmm, sometimes he comes to hang out after. That’s why that gym bag was in the kitchen for like a week.”
“I had kind of wondered if you’d taken up running without telling me,” she mused.
“Not in this lifetime.”
His mother laughed gently, looking up at him and folding her article in half to finish reading later. And they talked a little, bantering, trading snippets from their day with ease. Hoseok on the tip of his tongue, Taehyung told her everything but that last little piece and it almost felt like he wasn’t lying to her.
“We’ll have to go to a meet sometime,” she suggested, as easy as anything else, swiping through some delivery app or another. “See if he’s as good as he thinks he is.”
“Oh, he thinks he’s terrible,” Taehyung laughed.
More often than not their dates were easy, secret things. Curling up on the couch in Taehyung's living room, half-watching whatever awful drama Taehyung was so enamored with lately for some kind of believable excuse. Hoseok’s leg draped over his, a hand snaking up the front of his shirt to skate over Taehyung’s soft tummy, grazing over his hipbones with such purpose.
It was easier that way. Their town was small, the only people really out were the pair of bi girls in Hoseok's grade who went everywhere together and the tiny little freshman who'd moved from some city or another and hadn't known that he'd needed to hide it before it was everywhere. And Hoseok.
If he held Hoseok's hand very gently under the table at lunch, though, Taehyung didn't think anyone would mind. Their friends bumped shoulders and threw each other looks, but they didn’t bother to ask and wouldn’t have said anything anyway.
Hoseok had always been — well, there. Just out of reach really.
Something in the easy slope of his shoulders, in the cocky tilt of his head. The way he seemed to adapt effortlessly to whichever situation he’d been thrown into.
Sometimes he wondered if he put Hoseok up on a pedestal or if he’d always been there, waggling his eyebrows and murmuring something about how he’d help Taehyung if he wanted him to. Curling his dainty fingers into the pocket of his sweatshirt to drag him in.
God, that smirk.
Taehyung had never stood a chance.
"You know, you don't have to look at him like he's the only good thing you've ever seen," Jimin said, quietly and not unkindly.
Taehyung was about to protest, but Namjoon beat him to it. "No, that's not it," his deep voice said. He came up behind Jimin to rest his chin on his shoulder. He had to stoop a bit, but it didn't look uncomfortable. Jimin patted him gently on the cheek. "It's like he'd starving and Hoseok's food that he knows will make him sick."
Jimin hummed, considering, and Taehyung still wanted to protest, but it was different this time because he couldn't find it in himself to think it was wrong.
“I’m like — uncomfortably attached to these idiot characters,” Hoseok complained, chin resting casually on Taehyung’s shoulder. The credits flicked across the screen. Netflix warned that it was going to start the next episode if they didn’t do anything. Neither of them reached for the remote.
They were cuddled up close, almost spooning, almost horizontal on the couch. Taehyung’s mom wouldn’t be home for another couple hours. They had time.
“You love them,” Taehyung teased.
Hoseok hummed, considering. Pressed a soft kiss to the curve of Taehyung’s shoulder.
Sometimes it felt like squandered time when they did this sort of thing. Like every moment Taehyung spent alone in his presence should be filled with as much as he could fill it with. Kisses at least, but touching every inch of his golden skin would be as good or better.
This was nice, though. The easy way Hoseok was around him. How they could cuddle like this and mumble little ideas and complaints to each other, only going any further when one of them got distracted by the casual contact, by the brushing touches.
Taehyung savored it in a different way.
He had sort of thought it’d be some — well, something he just needed to get out of his system, if Taehyung was being super honest with himself, which he tended to do late at night, staring up at the underside of the top bunk in his room.
He'd never really thought about this sort of thing before. Not seriously anyway.
But then he and Hoseok had been laying on the floor of his room, new friends, just barely not touching, not really talking about anything in particular. Their shitty art class. How cute dogs were. How cute Namjoon's dogs were. The usual.
"You know, Sanghyuk kissed me once," Taehyung said, quietly.
"From your volleyball team?" asked Hoseok.
"Yeah," Taehyung said, raising a hand in the air for the hell of it. The conversation felt weird to be having on the ground. Like it wasn't real.
"Did you like it?" Hoseok asked. Taehyung heard something in his voice that was — well, but maybe he was imagining it. Maybe that was just Hoseok and maybe Taehyung was over thinking things.
Taehyung snorted. "Not really. He was sleeping over and, I don't know, apparently he had liked me or something? And he was just like hey and I looked over and he was right there and he kissed me."
Hoseok laughed, but it sounded a little strange. "And he thought that was going to work?"
"I guess."
There was a beat. Taehyung felt it in his bones and it was heavy but he thought he might like it. Whatever tension it was, however it pulled him. He thought he might let it.
"And then what happened."
"I pushed him away and pulled my hands to my sides and was like No, thank you, I don't think I like you like that." Hoseok's hand had moved closer. The back of his wrist rested against Taehyung's and the contact was — Taehyung liked it. It was both too much and not enough at the same time and he felt his stomach do an odd little swoop. Slowly, he moved his fingers just a little bit to brush against one of Hoseok's.
"That's so mean!" Hoseok laughed. His hand didn't move.
"Well I wasn't trying to be mean," Taehyung said. "I was just being honest."
Hoseok hummed. "And you think honesty’s the best policy?”
“In general.”
“Hey so —” Hoseok sounded uncertain and Taehyung wasn’t sure if he liked it. He wasn’t used to this Hoseok, whatever vulnerability he was showing. His Hoseok had never been anything less than certain. “— and please let’s just … forget this conversation ever happened if you think it’s awkward or something, but I just — do you think it’d be like that with all boys, or?”
“Like what?”
“Like,” Hoseok paused and licked at his lips, nervous despite the ghost of a smile. “Like — not like that.”
“No,” Taehyung said, quiet, acutely aware of his breathing.
Then, Hoseok was leaning up on an elbow, looking down at Taehyung on the floor of his bedroom. The little freckle on his lip was so pretty on his nervous little smile. The way his bangs flopped over his forehead. How he moved closer anyway.
“No?” he asked, before kissing him. And Taehyung had never really bought into the whole fireworks while kissing thing, but that didn’t stop his whole body from bursting into light.
He didn’t mind hiding. Honestly, he didn’t.
There was something a little bit nice in being special enough to be kept secret and safe. About making space for each other that was only for them and letting that be the thing they let drape over them late into the night. Let it mingle with whatever mixtape Hoseok had picked out. Let it tangle with their legs and fond gazes.
He could savor it the way he did his favorite strawberry ice cream or the first brisk day of fall.
But there was something just a little bit wrong about it, too. A little bit off that made his stomach sour.
He’d never really had a secret from his mother before, not like this, not bigger than pilfered cookies or staying out a little too late. She’d raised him mostly herself, his dad flitting in and out of their lives on his own schedule. He’d seen her be so strong and resilient and had always been a shoulder to cry on or been there cheering in the background, flowers at the ready.
A constant, benevolent force in the way that no one else was.
And to hide something so important to him, so central to who he was as a person felt — like a betrayal of sorts. Something too big to be excusable.
“I don’t think I’m ready to tell my mom,” Taehyung said quietly. Hoseok was sat cross legged on the other end of the couch, doodling something or other in his notebook while Taehyung did their Pre-Calculus homework.
“Tell your mom what?” Hoseok asked distractedly, chewing on the end of his pen.
“About — about us,” Taehyung said, wishing Hoseok would look at him. It felt vulnerable to say it out loud. Like something pressing just behind his eyes or maybe on his chest. Or both. “About being like — gay or bi or whatever.”
He wasn’t sure if he’d said it out loud before.
He wasn’t sure what he thought the actual answer was, either. Some neat little box to put how he felt about people, tied off with a ribbon, seemed sort of ridiculous. A label more constricting yet.
“No?”
Taehyung shook his head. “No, it’s — like, I feel like I should, though?” He twisted the grip around his pencil, anything to do with his hands.
“You shouldn’t do anything you’re not comfortable with, babe,” Hoseok said, glancing out into the room like he wasn’t sure what to say. Taehyung watched as his bit on his pretty lower lip and turned back to him, eyes soft, but not really — maybe not understanding where Taehyung was coming from.
“Yeah,” Taehyung said. “I know.”
“That’s okay,” Hoseok said, looking up from his notebook and shrugging a little bit. “To not tell her.” He looked regular. Like this wasn’t a big conversation to be having. Like it didn’t feel heavy to him at all. “My parents don’t know about me and I don’t really — I’ve never really thought about telling them.”
Hoseok shrugged again.
Taehyung kind of felt like he should drop it, but also — well, it was like picking at a scab, wasn’t it? Some kind of morbid fascination, maybe. Like a Do Not Enter door left propped half open.
“I tell my mom everything,” Taehyung said, feeling a little bit ridiculous. Like he was protesting something just to protest it.
“I know,” Hoseok said, sounding a little softer. Like he could see Taehyung’s raw edges. He shifted and put his notebook on the floor, leaned across the space to snuggle in next to Taehyung. “I know you do, but it’s okay to want to take your time with this.”
Taehyung swallowed and leaned into Hoseok.
“It’s okay to keep this to yourself,” Hoseok continued, reaching out to pet at Taehyung’s arm. “I don’t mind.”
And he was sure that Hoseok meant it kindly, to cheer him up or something, but it left a sour taste in his mouth and made tears prick up behind his eyes. Made him feel vastly lonely, even though Hoseok was literally right there, touching him softly. Cuddling him close.
The words were probably — well, he was trying, wasn’t he? Even if it sort of sounded like he was giving Taehyung permission to hide him, like that had anything to do with the guilt that swaddled itself in his stomach. Even if it felt like they were having two different conversations and everything about it felt at least a little useless, some missed connection that was new and the opposite of exciting.
Even if Hoseok pressing his face to Taehyung’s arm felt a little like some kind of consolation he’d never asked for, something short of what he needed.
“Yeah,” Taehyung managed, for something to say. It sounded kind of hollow.
Hoseok kissed his shoulder and Taehyung tried to be okay.
“Are you mad at me?” Hoseok asked quietly from across the art room table.
No felt like a lie, but it wasn’t exactly that Taehyung was mad. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been properly mad. (That was a lie. It had been the summer before and involved Jimin and a dog and a strawberry ice cream cone and he’d pouted for days).
He was just — disappointed.
What a cliche.
“I’m not sure,” Taehyung said, pulling his dumb little soapstone statue towards himself.
“Did I do something?” Hoseok asked. He wasn’t looking at his own statue, a knobby sort of thing that didn’t really look like anything as far as Taehyung was concerned. The question was sort of stupid, but the fact that he had most of Hoseok’s attention was nice. The concerned little line of his mouth reminded Taehyung that he wasn’t being dense on purpose to hurt him or something.
“Not exactly,” Taehyung said, grating at the stone.
He half expected to get some kind of bored or snide answer (he probably deserved one, could he be more vague?) but Hoseok just nodded. Like he was waiting for him to continue.
“Do you remember that conversation we had about like —” Taehyung hesitated, unsure how to describe it, especially if he had to collapse it down to one thing. He wasn’t sure if they even thought it had been about the same things. “— telling mom about us?”
(“D’you know a way to fix that?” Jimin had asked, draping himself over his shoulders when Taehyung had said something passive aggressive about the whole thing. About how he wasn’t sure if he was being heard or if Hoseok even understood, really, why Taehyung was so nervous.
“Hmm?” Pouting.
Jimin had brought his face very close to Taehyung’s and whispered in a way that made it very clear he was both fond of Taehyung and annoyed with him. “You ask him.”
Namjoon had chuckled and Taehyung had wanted to hit them both with books, or at least pillows.)
“Yeah,” Hoseok said, nodding.
“I think I’m going to try and talk to her?” Taehyung said, like it was a question. “It just feels like something — I don’t know, too big to keep from her.”
He half expected Hoseok to snort or to shrug, but Hoseok just nodded. “You should do that if it’s bothering you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Hoseok shrugged but it didn’t feel dismissive. “I know that kind of thing’s important to you — just because it’s not something I would want to do, doesn’t mean I don’t think you should do it, especially if it’s bothering you like this.”
“Oh,” Taehyung said quietly, looking down at the little sculpture, the careful little ridges he’d made in the blue-green stone. The shape that was just starting to poke out of it, rough lines and careful angles and some unidentifiable about of possibility or promise.
“Hey,” Hoseok said, to get him to look up at him. Meeting his eyes was intense, but soft at the same time. His gaze kind but pressing. “I just want you to be happy.”
It was hard to imagine he didn’t mean it.
And Taehyung was still — uncertain in a lot of different ways, but also, well — he couldn’t think of anything that was more gratifying to hear at that moment, that it was his happiness Hoseok was concerned with. That he could figure out this on his own and he’d have at least someone’s support.
Despite himself, he felt little pricks at the backs of his eyes like he might start crying right there in the middle of art class on his crappy little soapstone sculpture. He ducked his head down.
“Hey,” Hoseok said quietly.
There was a beat and then Taehyung heard the scrape of his chair on the linoleum, some careful scuffling as Hoseok maneuvered it around the table and clunked it next to Taehyung. He sat himself down, thigh pressed against Taehyung’s, very carefully casual in a way that Taehyung thought he might never really understand or be able to replicate.
“Thank you,” Taehyung said quietly.
“For what?” asked Hoseok, shrugging, and reaching across the table for his sandpaper.
Taehyung twisted his hands together, like that would relieve some of his anxiety. He hated feeling like this around his mom, not knowing what she would think or how she would react to his being — whatever he was.
He loved her, yes, and they were close and talked about everything. And she seemed cool with the whole pride thing in general, sure, but that didn’t mean — well. That she’d be support him in this. He knew it was different sometimes when it came to people you loved, to people you’d always thought were one thing and then suddenly they’re telling you something else.
He didn’t think he’d blame her.
But he still felt like he had to try, the weight of not knowing, of hiding this from her too much to shoulder.
“What is it, sweetheart?” his mom asked, reaching across the table to push his bangs back from where they hung in his eyes.
“It’s —” started Taehyung, looking up at her. Traced the little lines of concern on her forehead with his eyes. Lost all the words he'd started to put together.
“Is it something to do with Hoseok?” his mom asked, tilting her head a little.
Maybe.
Yes.
“That's not — not exactly,” Taehyung said. He looked back down at his hands.
“You two aren't fighting, are you? I haven't seen him around as much,” she said.
“I mean, not exactly.” She pulled a face that was something between annoyed and fond. And that was probably fair. He was being evasive, giving the same answer more than once.
“Well whatever it exactly is,” she said, smiling softly. Teasing just a little bit. “I hope you two are being nice to each other.”
“Yeah?” Taehyung looked up from his hands. That almost sounded like — well.
“Yes,” she said with a nod. “You seemed really happy there for a few months. If it’s just silly bickering, I wouldn’t want to —” she made a little waving gesture with her hand like she was struggling for the right word. “Well, to lose that.”
Taehyung hummed, twisted his fingers together. Watched as she took precise bites of the chicken sandwich she’d gotten. “Mom?” he asked, felt his voice break just a little.
“Yes?”
Taehyung opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out. Stayed lodged in his throat. His closed his mouth again, shook his head.
“Well,” she said, petting his hair back again. “Whatever it is, I support you and you can tell me when you’re ready, okay?”
Taehyung nodded, felt something ache in his chest. He thought he might cry and wasn’t sure if the tears would be happy or sad. He’d need someone to tell him, maybe. “Okay,” he whispered.
She tapped on the top of the hamburger he’d ordered and not touched at all and said, “I love you, now eat your sandwich.”
Hoseok pulled Taehyung a little tighter against his chest, pressed a kiss to the back of his neck and it was a little like nothing had changed and a little like everything had.
“I’m sorry I got mad at you the other day,” Taehyung said, quiet. He dragged a finger along Hoseok’s arm. It felt a little like laying his soul out, which was silly. It was just an apology. “I wasn’t really like — mad at you exactly and I probably should have just, like, used my words or whatever.”
Hoseok snorted gently into his neck. Kissed him again, any bit of skin he could reach. “It’s okay.”
“It doesn’t feel okay.”
“No?” Hoseok asked.
“No,” Taehyung said, shaking his head and pulling away so he could sit up a little. “I just was so anxious about the whole telling my mom thing, I got kind of — well, you know.”
Hoseok sat up with him, leaning casually against the back of the couch. “I know,” he said.
Taehyung looked at him for a moment, took in how easily they’d fallen together, how content he looked there on his couch. The soft way Hoseok was looking at him. Wondered if it would be a little like throwing bees into brownie mix if he made himself press forward in the conversation.
Swallowed carefully and pressed anyway.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Always.”
“Why didn’t you support me telling my mom? Before?” Taehyung tried very carefully not to sound accusatory. He didn’t want — well, anymore of how they’d been lately. He wanted to keep things nice and soft and close, but, well. Was it worth it if things were left unsaid?
“Oh,” Hoseok said, like maybe he hadn’t thought about it like that before. “No, I just — well I’ve never really thought of telling my family those kinds of things about me, so it’s like — well, I wanted you to know that it was okay if you felt like maybe it wasn’t the right time yet.”
Taehyung was pretty sure that made sense, but also —
“Do you think you’ll ever tell your family?” Taehyung asked, pulling his knees to his chest.
“Probably not,” Hoseok said with no hesitation. He must have seen Taehyung’s face fall a little because he snuggled in a little closer. “Babe,” he said, soft. “My parents know so little about me and I swear that every new thing they learn disappoints them.”
“That’s stupid,” Taehyung said, stubborn.
“You’re telling me,” Hoseok said with a chuckle that didn’t sound happy in the slightest. He blinked, slow, a scrunched up his pretty mouth into a wry smile. “You know this whole thing …” He trailed off, but Taehyung just waited, watching as Hoseok blinked back whatever emotion had threatened to come up. His nose looked a little bit red. He swallowed. “This whole thing has been so nice and easy, I was so — I’m so glad that it’s like this. I was so surprised, even before we were … together, that I could just like, fall into your life like this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that — your mom was cool with me like, like coming over and hanging out on her couch and sleeping over on our whims and that she like — I don’t know, fed me and talked to me and stuff. I’ve never really. That’s never happened before.” He paused for a moment, considering. “It’s nice,” he said, voice just a raspy little whisper.
“I don’t —” Taehyung cut himself off. Pressed his lips together. He hadn’t known. Hadn’t thought to ask. “I didn’t know,” he said, quiet.
“I don’t like getting into, but it’s just —” Hoseok shook his head. “I don’t want you to be some other reason they’re disappointed in me. You’re so far from a disappointment it’s ridiculous and I don’t want them to wreck you for me like everything else.”
Taehyung cuddled closer, pressed his face into Hoseok’s neck. “No?” he asked, his voice small.
“No,” Hoseok said into his hair, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. His arms where snaking around Taehyung’s waist, their grip on him earnest like he never wanted to let go.
Taehyung thought he might want that too.
“There they go again,” Taehyung heard Jimin mumble, a row up from them. A glance found him leaning between Namjoon’s legs, who had his nose buried in whatever book he’d brought with. Taehyung was pretty sure that if bothered, Namjoon wouldn’t have been able to tell what sport specifically they’d come to watch.
“Shut up,” Taehyung said playfully, enjoying the feeling of Hoseok nuzzling into his neck.
“Yeah, shut up,” Hoseok said, grinning when he pulled back. “Right, Namjoon?”
“Mhmm,” said Namjoon, not looking up. Jimin swatted at him, but he didn’t look offended in the slightest. He was beaming at him like he always was, one hand curled around Namjoon’s knee.
Taehyung snickered.
The crowd around them jumped up, cheering for something or other, but none of them rose to join them (though Jimin called out something encouraging). Taehyung felt Hoseok mouth at the back of his neck, cold from whatever soda he’d been drinking, and shivered just a little bit. Laced their fingers together.
There was something lazy about the whole thing, he knew, sprawling out on their little corner of the bleachers with his friends, letting the sun sink into their skin. But Taehyung couldn’t think of a better way to spend his afternoon either.