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“Sorry, guys. They’re all out of free rooms,” their manager explains guiltily, passing two key cards to Beomgyu. “You’ll have to share for at least tonight. I asked them to give us another one tomorrow if any free up.”
Beomgyu smiles at their manager, holding the cards to his chest. “I don’t mind,” he assures, then glances at Kai. “You don’t either, right?”
Kai nods fervently. “Yeah! Of course.” Their manager seems doubtful, so for good measure, Kai throws his arms around Beomgyu and squeezes him like a teddy bear—much to Beomgyu’s chagrin. “This will be the best night of my life!” he declares, and it's not exactly an exaggeration.
“Alright, alright,” their manager laughs, tugging a disgruntled Beomgyu out of Kai’s arms before his hyung can elbow him in the stomach. “Call me if you need anything, then.”
“Will do!” Kai salutes, and then they’re off to their room together.
Kai has to admit, when he first found out there was only one bed in his and Beomgyu’s room, his first thought was fuck yeah. Him and Beomgyu never get to room together—and sharing the same bed? Literally unheard of. Literally.
Listen, he’s a selfish kid who’s been nursing a crush on his hyung for a scarily long time; he’s allowed to be happy when the universe works in his favour. And even if he’s not allowed, he can’t help it, so.
Beomgyu enjoys hugs, but he’s less prone to cuddling, so Kai has to take every chance he can get. Feelings aside, Beomgyu is just so cuddleable, and it’s a crime that it’s so rare Kai gets to hold him.
He already knew they would both be too nice to let the other sleep on the floor, meaning they’d have to share the bed, and Kai is giddy all evening with this on his mind. Conjuring up images of Beomgyu’s face against his chest, his pretty lashes brushing Kai’s arm, their legs all tangled. He’s been dreaming about this opportunity for years.
For some reason, his brain forgot about the existence of pillows, and he glares at the one Beomgyu wedges in between them like it’s the worst thing alive. It might as well be.
Yes, it’s perfectly reasonable that Beomgyu would separate the bed into two sides, and that he doesn’t want to be spooned like a stuffed animal all night by his purely platonic friend. But also, what’s wrong with cuddling? Kai gives great cuddles! He’s an excellent big spoon!
“… Do you not have enough room?” Beomgyu asks.
“Huh?” Kai’s head snaps up from where he was cursing out the pillow.
“You look upset,” Beomgyu says. He sounds genuinely concerned, and Kai instantly feels bad. It’s not Beomgyu’s fault Kai’s imagination got all worked up. “Do you need more space? I can probably move over a bit m—”
“I’m okay!” Kai lies on his side of the bed and stretches out to show how totally fine he is. It is a tight squeeze, but he’s used to sharing a bed with Soobin, who takes up far more space than Beomgyu does. This is luxurious in comparison. “See?”
“If you say so,” Beomgyu says. He lies on the other side, across the pillow in between them, and flicks the light on the bedside table off. “G’night, Kai.”
Kai stares, forlorn, at Beomgyu’s arms curled around himself. Those should’ve been Kai’s arms around Beomgyu. If it wasn’t for this stupid pillow blocking him.
“Goodnight, hyung,” he says, and pouts into the darkness.
It’s fine. They’re still sharing a bed—and besides, his joy over getting to hold Beomgyu was entirely selfish in the first place. He didn’t do anything to earn it, certainly. What kind of weirdo imagines spooning their friend, anyways? Beomgyu would be so freaked out if he knew all the sick, depraved things that went on in Kai’s mind, like how he wants to hold Beomgyu’s hand more often and sit on his lap and kiss him and…
“Stop that,” Beomgyu mumbles, and Kai nearly squeals. Did he say all of that out loud? Oh, fuck—“Don’t eat that.”
Huh?
“Don’t eat what?” Kai asks, puzzled. He looks over his shoulder, as if there would be some sort of person eating behind him, but there obviously isn’t. Is Beomgyu speaking to him?
Or… is he speaking to somebody in his dreams?
“The cookie dough,” Beomgyu answers, petulantly, in that pouty tone he uses when he’s pretending to be annoyed. He’s so quiet Kai probably wouldn’t even hear him if it wasn’t for the fact he was lying only a few centimetres away. “It’s bad for you.”
Kai relaxes when he realises Beomgyu isn’t awake and didn’t hear his inner thoughts. He’s just sleeptalking.
They all know Beomgyu talks in his sleep, but Kai’s never heard him say anything but names and single words. Never an entire conversation, certainly.
“Who are you speaking to?” Kai prods, too curious for his own good.
His shock is written all over his face as Beomgyu answers, “You, obviously.” Thank goodness Beomgyu isn’t awake to see it.
“Me?” Kai repeats. “Kai?”
“Unless you’ve changed your name,” Beomgyu huffs. “Stop eating it or I’ll worry.”
Kai wonders what kind of scenario Beomgyu is dreaming up that Kai is apparently eating raw cookie dough. “Okay, I’ll stop,” Kai says, solemnly.
“Good boy,” Beomgyu hums, and pats the pillow in between them like it’s Kai’s head. “You can have them when they’re finished.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Kai says. There’s so much warmth blossoming in his chest he doesn’t know what to do with it all, and his toes curl in delight.
“You better like them,” Beomgyu continues. He’s still pouting, and Kai’s need to kiss him is growing stronger by the second.
“I’m sure I will,” Kai reassures him.
It’s cute that dream-Beomgyu thinks Kai could ever dislike anything he makes. That’s just out of character; but it is a dream, so Kai won’t take too offence to it. After all, Beomgyu is still, for whatever reason, dreaming up some domestic little cookie-baking scenario for them, and Kai’s about to burst from happiness.
“They’re all for you. Don’t share them.”
Scratch that, he’s not about to burst from happiness. He actually bursts, burying his face into the pillow and screaming.
His hyung is too cute. He’s literally too cute. It’s too much for Kai’s poor heart to handle; being able to spend time alone with him is one thing, but when Beomgyu is acting like this? How is Kai not supposed to fall in love with him?
He cares so much about Kai’s safety that he’s warning him off of raw cookie dough in his presumably cheerful dream. How utterly adorable is that?
After gathering his wits once more, he lifts his head and says, “I won’t, since hyung made them all for me,” as sweetly as he can.
He must’ve taken too long to answer, because Beomgyu doesn’t respond, his face going lax as his dreams shift away from Kai and their cookies. Kai’s a little disappointed the sleeptalking ended so quickly, but he’ll gladly hold this memory close to him for the rest of his life.
He may not have been able to hug Beomgyu as they slept like he wanted, but knowing Beomgyu was dreaming about him is the second best thing—if not even better.
“Did you have a nice rest, hyung?” Kai pesters the following morning, trying not to seem too eager.
“Hm? Yeah.” Beomgyu is slipping on a pair of socks, all dressed and ready to go for their filming today. Unlike Kai, who only just got out of bed two minutes ago. “Did you?”
“Yep!” Kai chirps. He slept in because he couldn’t fall asleep for hours after finding out Beomgyu dreamt about him, his heart racing nonstop, but the few hours of sleep he got were blissful.
Beomgyu smiles at him, and Kai’s heart does a mini-flip. “I’m glad, because we’re going to be sharing again tonight.”
Kai’s entire face lights up before he realises how creepy it must look and he forces it to relax into something that comes off as more platonic. “Really?”
“Yeah. Hyung texted saying they couldn’t get another room for today either.” Beomgyu stretches his arms over his head. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Don’t worry, hyung, I had a great night,” he emphasises. Beomgyu raises a brow at his wording and Kai flushes. “Do you remember any of your dreams?”
“My dreams?” Beomgyu echoes. “… Why?”
“I’m just curious,” Kai huffs, and this time he’s more confident in his normalcy. Discussing dreams is normal, right? It’s not that weird to ask.
“Not really.” Beomgyu shrugs. “If I have an interesting one, I’ll tell you.”
“Okay!” Kai says, as happily as he feels inside, and he spends the entire rest of the day just waiting around for it to end so he can hear what Beomgyu dreams about that night.
When Kai hears Beomgyu speak again that night, he almost falls out of bed.
He’s more tired than he thought after a whole day of filming, and he’s spent the past two hours fighting sleep off because he’ll never forgive himself if he misses Beomgyu dreaming about him.
Thankfully, right as he’s about to drift off, Beomgyu grumbles, “You’re such a brat.”
Just by Beomgyu’s tone, Kai already knows he’s talking about him, and he curls his hands into fists as that pure, unadulterated joy overtakes him again.
His hyung is dreaming about him. For the second night in a row! Kai could scream. He doesn’t know if it’s because Kai is right there or what—but either way, it means Beomgyu thinks about him sometimes when he’s asleep, and that’s everything to Kai.
“Am I?” Kai giggles. “What did I do?”
“You know what you did,” Beomgyu counters instantly, and Kai snickers.
He doesn’t, but he has some guesses. It has to be one of three things: pranking him, cuddling him, or disobeying him. Those are the three things that always irritate Beomgyu without fail, and that’s why Kai loves doing them all.
“I really don’t, though,” Kai promises.
It’s difficult to see Beomgyu’s face properly in the darkness and with his hair covering his eyes, but he sees Beomgyu’s lips purse as if truly contemplating Kai’s words. Finally, he says, “You’re being a brat.”
It takes a lot of effort for Kai to keep his laughter quiet. “I still don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry, hyung.”
“No, you aren’t,” Beomgyu whines. “You never are, but I…”
“You?” Kai prompts.
“I like it,” Beomgyu finishes. “So don’t stop.”
Kai’s giggling dies down abruptly as he processes Beomgyu’s words, and then his happiness is replaced with something indescribable. More than happiness or joy. It’s love.
“Hyung!” Kai whisper-yells, and gosh does he wish he could just shove away the pillow between them and hug Beomgyu to his chest. But that would be legitimately creepy and would definitely wake Beomgyu up. “I’ll never stop! I promise!”
Just like last night, Beomgyu’s attention span for sleep-conversing doesn’t seem that long, because he doesn’t say anything in return. But it’s fine, Kai doesn’t need to hear anything else. His night—no, his life—has already been made.
This night he falls asleep at a decent time, and his dreams are just as wonderful as he hopes Beomgyu’s were, filled with visions of them together.
Their manager informs them that they don’t have another hotel room yet again, and Kai would be over the moon if he wasn’t too busy despairing over this being their last night in Tokyo. Meaning tomorrow they’ll be in a different hotel with different roommates and Kai will no longer be sharing a bed or room with Beomgyu.
It’s sad, but that’s life, he supposes. He can be delusional all he wants over his hyung, but in the end, they’re two platonic friends in an idol group; there’s nothing there, not on Beomgyu’s side.
Instead of thinking about that, however, he thinks about how Beomgyu basically admitted liking Kai’s attempts to grab his attention, and so he spends all day pestering him—tugging on his hair, hugging him out of nowhere, pretending not to hear him until he pouts.
And now that he knows Beomgyu likes it, he can see the signs there too, how Beomgyu smiles whenever he thinks Kai isn’t looking.
Does Beomgyu only play along because he knows it makes Kai happy? Because it sure seems like it.
Kai didn’t even know he could get more in love with Beomgyu until now.
“What’s up with you?” Soobin questions, suspicious, when Kai begins to giggle out of nowhere. He’s been giggling all day—all that love, overflowing.
“I’m just happy, hyung!” Kai says, throwing his arms around Soobin. Soobin yelps, attempting to fight him off. Kai knows for sure that just like Beomgyu, Soobin secretly likes his hugs, so he refuses to let go. “What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s creepy,” Soobin complains. “You’re just standing there smiling to yourself.”
“Would you rather I frown instead?”
“Yes,” Soobin says, seriously.
Kai releases Soobin and turns to Beomgyu on his other side, tugging on his sleeve. “Hyung, Soobin hyung is being mean to me.” Shout out to Soobin for giving Kai more ammo to get Beomgyu’s attention! He’s such a good friend.
“Soobin, stop being mean to him,” Beomgyu deadpans. And while he doesn’t look up from his phone, he reaches up to pat Kai’s head, and Kai absolutely preens.
“That’s Soobin hyung to you!” Soobin yells.
“Okay, Soobin,” Beomgyu says.
Kai happily listens to them bicker; the top of his head tingling, his stomach full of butterflies, and his entire body brimming with anticipation for tonight’s rest.
His brain must have fixated a little too much on the rest part of resting, because he wakes up the next morning panicked, realising he fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.
He’s seriously going to scream. How could he do that to himself?! Who knows what kind of adorable conversation he missed out on by falling asleep early! He dreamt about Beomgyu, so his actual sleep was great, but at what cost?
And this was their last night sharing a room, too—and even if they do end up sharing a room again on this fansign tour, who knows if they’ll be able to share a bed? Beomgyu talks so quietly in his sleep, he doubts he would be able to hear him from across the room.
The disappointment in him is unparalleled, and he sulks the entire time they pack their things. Beomgyu seems unusually exhausted, so Kai leaves him alone. Maybe they both had shitty nights for some reason. Maybe Beomgyu didn’t have any sweet dreams last night and Kai didn’t miss out on anything.
He keeps telling himself that so he'll feel less terrible about missing out.
Whatever. In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t anything important. Kai will internally whine over his own feelings for a bit, then resign himself to his unrequited pining and forget about it. It’s not like he didn’t already know Beomgyu cares about him. Sure, hearing it in words—in this particular situation—is different, but it’s nothing to get worked up over. Beomgyu probably dreams about all of them an equal amount.
What matters is that his Beomgyu hyung loves him enough to dream about him; not what way it’s in. And he did get reassurance that Beomgyu likes his teasing, which should be more than enough to satisfy him.
“Hyung? Are you ready to go?” Kai asks, finding his key card in his backpack. They’ll need to hand it back to their manager when they go down to the lobby.
Beomgyu doesn’t respond, hunched over his suitcase, and Kai moves closer with a frown.
“Hyung?” he repeats.
He thinks Beomgyu has somehow fallen asleep standing up or something until, a moment later, he stands and smiles brightly at Kai. “Sorry, just thinking. Yeah, I’m ready.”
Kai squints at him. Beomgyu’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes, and his delayed reaction tells Kai that he was thinking about something bad.
An irrational fear tugs at Kai’s heart that Beomgyu somehow found out about Kai’s non-platonic inner thoughts about wanting to kiss and hold him, but that would be ridiculous. Beomgyu isn’t a mind reader, and Kai isn’t actually that obvious, not externally.
“Are you not feeling well?” Kai moves closer, ready to lay his palm over Beomgyu’s forehead to check his temperature, when Beomgyu swiftly dodges out of the way. “Hyung…”
“I’m fine, I’m fine. I promise.” Beomgyu pats Kai’s shoulder. “I just didn’t sleep well.”
“I thought you said you liked sleeping with me,” Kai whines, trying to lighten the mood.
“It’s not your fault,” Beomgyu says. “Let’s just go down. I’m all packed.”
Kai’s suspicions grow. Normally, Beomgyu would at least jokingly refute Kai’s words. Whatever’s bothering him must be weighing down his mind.
Either Beomgyu is stressed out over something Kai has no idea about, or he’s sick.
Kai will just have to keep an eye on him today. And he’ll force Soobin—Beomgyu’s roommate in their next hotel—to do the same.
Beomgyu rolls his eyes at Kai’s silence. “I’m fine, Kai. Come on, let’s go.” He grabs Kai’s hand, which promptly removes all coherent thought from Kai’s brain, and drags him to the elevator.
Beomgyu is not, in fact, fine.
Two days later, he’s still acting weird, except it’s not to everybody. To everybody else—that is, everybody but Kai—he’s totally normal.
To Kai, he’s weird, which is not fine, and now Kai’s irrational fears are seeming more and more likely.
He asks Beomgyu over and over if something’s wrong, but Beomgyu always gives the same canned answer that he’s fine, don’t worry. Kai turns to the other three, who all shrug and tell him that they haven’t noticed anything wrong with Beomgyu, and Kai’s so frustrated he’s about to rip his hair out.
Did he do something wrong? He’s starting to believe Beomgyu was secretly awake one of those nights and came to the realisation that Kai had feelings for him and now he hates him and wants nothing to do with him.
Beomgyu excuses himself early from their group movie night in their manager’s room, and Kai literally jumps off the bed in his haste to follow.
“I’ll walk you there!” Kai yells. This is the first opportunity he’s had in two days to get Beomgyu alone and possibly figure out why he’s acting so weird. And, okay, Kai knows he’s being weird by asking to walk Beomgyu back to his hotel room, but Kai is a weird person in general, so he doesn’t think it’s too out of place.
“... Down the hallway?” Beomgyu says. Yeonjun snorts and Kai flips him the middle finger behind his back, which only makes him laugh harder.
“What if somebody tries to kidnap you while you’re walking?” Kai puffs out his chest. “I’ll protect you.”
“Just let him do it, hyung, or he’ll complain about it all night,” Taehyun says, and Beomgyu sighs.
He gestures for Kai to follow and Kai perks up, quickly following him out the door.
Beomgyu’s room is literally only five doors down, so it takes all of one minute to reach it. Kai doesn’t even have the chance to think about what he’s going to say.
“Well, thanks for this,” Beomgyu says dryly, smiling. But once again, the smile isn’t completely genuine, and Kai panics. What does he say? How does he get Beomgyu to speak?
If Beomgyu knows about his feelings and wants to let him down easy, Kai would rather Beomgyu tell him—instead of whatever cat-and-mouse thing they have going on right now.
“... Kai?” Beomgyu waves his hand in front of Kai’s face. “Are you—”
“Why are you mad at me?” Kai blurts out, and Beomgyu’s eyes widen like a deer caught in headlights.
Smooth, Kai, smooth. But to be fair, that’s where the conversation would’ve led anyway, so there’s no point in delaying it.
“... Excuse me?” Beomgyu says. His brows furrow. “I’m not mad at you. What are you talking about?”
“Yes, you are,” Kai whines. “We’ve barely spoken for two days, hyung. Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not—”
“It hurts, okay? When you ignore me and I don’t know why.” Kai’s whining turns into a mumble, and his cheeks warm. “Like, it really sucks. So can you just tell me why?”
He watches various emotions flicker over Beomgyu’s face—affront, then irritation, and then finally resignation. Kai isn’t sure whether to be smug that he was right or devastated that he was right.
“We shouldn’t have this conversation in the hallway,” Beomgyu says quietly, and pushes open his door. “C’mon.”
Kai can already tell which side of the room is Beomgyu’s by the neatly folded clothing stacked on top of his suitcase—versus Soobin’s side of the room, which has his clothes strewn all over the bed.
Beomgyu sits down on his bed, arms crossed, and sighs deeply. Kai awkwardly stands in front of him, trying not to play with his hands.
“I’m not mad at you,” Beomgyu says. “I just…”
“If I did something wrong, please tell me, hyung,” Kai pleads. He bites his lip. “Is it something that happened when we were sharing a room? Was I a shitty roommate?”
“Yes, well—no, you weren’t a shitty roommate—but…” Beomgyu rubs his hands over his face. “I don’t know how to put this.”
“Just tell me,” Kai begs.
Beomgyu takes a deep breath, hands dropping to his lap, and then says, “You talk in your sleep.”
Kai blinks.
“What?”
“I said, you talk in your sl—”
“No, I don’t,” Kai says, baffled. “You’re the one who talks in your sleep!”
“I don’t talk in my sleep, I say names,” Beomgyu stresses. “There’s a difference.”
“You talked in your sleep every night we were together,” Kai says, now feeling like he has to prove a point. “What are you talking about? I don’t talk in my sleep. Ever.”
“Yeah, you do. Or at least you did the other night.” Beomgyu frowns, picking at the hem of his sleeve.
“Are you sure you didn’t just dream it, hyung?”
“I’m pretty sure,” Beomgyu grumbles. “Are you sure you didn’t dream me talking in my sleep?”
“I’m pretty sure,” Kai says. “You talked to me about me eating cookie dough or something, and—” Judging by the way Beomgyu’s lips part in surprise, Kai definitely didn’t dream it, “—how you like it when I’m annoying.”
Beomgyu doesn’t respond for a long time, only stares at Kai in shock, and Kai feels a little bad for him. It must suck to find out you talk in your sleep like, for real.
Unlike Kai, who absolutely does not talk in his sleep.
It’s a well-known fact Beomgyu mumbles while dreaming sometimes, but nobody has ever complained about Kai doing the same before.
Eventually, Beomgyu straightens his back and coughs into his fist, “Well, that doesn’t change the fact you talk in your sleep too.”
“It’s okay to be embarrassed, hyung, but you don’t need to keep insisting on something that isn’t even true—besides, why are you ignoring me over—”
“You said you liked me,” Beomgyu interrupts him, and Kai promptly shuts up. “In your sleep. The other night. When you were talking.”
Now it’s Kai’s turn to be shocked into silence.
Okay, maybe he does talk in his sleep.
Beomgyu would have literally no other way of knowing that Kai is secretly, horribly in love with him if it didn’t come from himself—because he trusts that none of the others would tell him, and Kai did nothing particularly out of the ordinary the other day that would make Beomgyu randomly start ignoring him.
Suddenly, he feels nauseous, and he covers his mouth with his hand.
“That’s,” he stammers, “um, maybe you misheard?”
“I didn’t,” Beomgyu says resolutely, and this time Kai has to believe him because he was right the first time.
“Oh, okay,” Kai says.
Well then.
Suddenly, Kai’s rosy memories of hearing Beomgyu’s dreams aren’t as rosy anymore. He wouldn’t have shared a room with him at all if he knew that.
Now stupid dream-Kai has gone and ruined everything. This isn’t fair. Why did Beomgyu say such sweet things and Kai had to go and be so… weird? And it’s not the cute kind of weird this time.
“I’m sorry,” Kai says.
“No, I’m sorry,” Beomgyu repeats back to him instantly, and stands up. “I—”
“No, I’m sorry,” Kai interjects, “I shouldn’t have agreed to room with you because it’s inappropriate and even though I didn’t know I’d tell you in my sleep it’s still weird and—”
“Kai, will you just let me speak—”
“—I should’ve told you I heard you sleeptalking too, because it’s even weirder that I just told you I listened to you sleep, and it’s even weirder when I phrase it like that, and I really didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, and I’m sorry and I’ll shut up forever and—”
Kai does shut up, but not out of his own volition. He only shuts up because suddenly Beomgyu’s lips are on his and they’re kissing and what the fuck?
“What the fuck?” he says out loud, once Beomgyu steps back.
“Will you let me speak now?” Beomgyu asks, and Kai nods dumbly. He wouldn’t be able to speak even if he tried, he’s pretty sure. “I just… didn’t know how to bring up that I felt the same way without seeming creepy for listening in on the first place,” Beomgyu mutters, crossing his arms. His cheeks steadily grow redder and redder until he’s practically a tomato.
“You,” Kai chokes. “Huh?”
“I felt so bad for hearing something that you—you obviously didn’t want me to hear,” Beomgyu mumbles, holding onto Kai’s arms. “And I didn’t know if you wanted to act on them, or if it was just you daydreaming, or maybe you know another Beomgyu, or… I don’t know. I still don’t know any of those things. I’m sorry.”
“Hyung,” Kai says, amazed. “You’re literally saying you like me back, why are you sorry?”
Beomgyu laughs and lifts his head. “I’ve had three days to stress over whether you were just joking around in your dreams or not, okay?”
Three days of overthinking? For Beomgyu, that’s a lot. As in, Beomgyu can cram a lot of catastrophizing into just three days.
“Oh,” Kai says, softly, and swallows.
“... Though, I do feel a little better now knowing that you did the same thing to me,” Beomgyu says, and smiles slightly.
“I—I didn’t even know I talked in my sleep.” Kai reaches for Beomgyu. “Hyung—”
“I know you didn’t know, that’s part of why I didn’t know whether or not to bring it up,” Beomgyu sighs. “But it’s… it’s okay, right? That I know?”
“Hyung, I am so in love with you it’s fucking embarrassing,” Kai says, not very eloquently, and shakes him.
Beomgyu’s voice rises as he says, “You didn’t say love—”
Kai presses on, because it’s too late to go back anyways, “And it’s even more embarrassing you found out this way, but.” He brings Beomgyu closer, basking in how sturdy and warm he is in Kai’s arms, and tucks his face against his shoulder. “Do you really like me back?”
“You can’t say love in one sentence and then like in another,” Beomgyu whispers.
“... Is that a no?” Kai asks, but he already knows the answer just by how Beomgyu relaxes in his arms, laughing.
“I love you,” Beomgyu says, and pokes his cheek until he lifts his head. Beomgyu’s eyes are so big and pretty and genuine, and Kai can’t help but break into a smile. “Does that answer your question?”
“I might need a demonstration.” Kai puckers his lips cutely, and while Beomgyu rolls his eyes, he doesn’t hesitate before leaning in to kiss him.
“So… do you think we ever talk to each other while we’re sleeping? Like, do we sleeptalk at the same time?” Kai ponders.
Beomgyu snorts. “How would we know if we’re asleep?”
“We should film ourselves sleeping all night to find out. Like, set up a camera then go through it the next morning—”
Before he can finish his sentence, Beomgyu is flicking his forehead. “Why are you assuming we’re going to be sleeping together anytime soon?”
Kai’s face instantly falls. Well, that’s true. Most couples don’t start sharing a bed until a while into their relationship, or so that’s what TV shows have taught him.
“Oh my god, please don’t make that face.” Beomgyu’s hands press against his cheeks, squishing his face. “I’m just kidding. You can always come sleep in my bed. You know that.”
Kai brightens. “Really?”
“Of course,” Beomgyu says, dropping his hands to Kai’s shoulders. “That’s always been true.”
“… It has?” Kai blinks at him in disbelief. “But—but I thought you hated cuddling!”
“First of all, do you think anybody could say no to you?” Beomgyu shakes his head. “And I don’t hate it. I only hate it when you do it on camera. If it’s just us, then…” He smiles. “It’s nice. But I want to keep it just for us.”
This entire time… he and Beomgyu could have been sleeping in the same bed? Like, he could have crawled into Beomgyu’s bed in the dorms and Beomgyu wouldn’t have called him annoying and kicked him out?
“I’ve wasted so much time,” he whispers, and he only realises he said it out loud when Beomgyu begins to laugh.
“You’re ridiculous,” Beomgyu says, and kisses his nose. “Ridiculous, but cute. I love you.”
Kai squeals and hugs Beomgyu, shouting back, “I love you too, hyung!”
And boy, does it feel incredible to be able to say that—like he’s truly meant it this entire time—outside of his dreams.