Chapter Text
The last time Taeyong drank with Doyoung was 555 days ago, sitting next to Doyoung with his hand on Doyoung’s knee and watching Doyoung go all tongue-tied over another man while saying nothing at all to him about Japan. Two hours later, he had cried in Doyoung’s bed and tried to decide if Doyoung loved him too much or not enough, or maybe just not the way Taeyong had always hoped. Two days later, Doyoung showed up at his door, as pale and tired as Taeyong felt. For a brief, breathless moment, Taeyong thought that maybe Doyoung had come to take it all back, to beg him to stay, to say that the only textbook he ever wanted to study was Taeyong, that he had returned Ground Force Aerodynamics for good.
Doyoung – thoughtful, irritatingly thoughtful Doyoung – brought him a bottle of champagne to celebrate his new job, the one that was going to take him away and break them apart, as if the separation that was to come was something worthy of a toast. Taeyong understood. He had known Doyoung long enough to know that the gesture was well-intentioned, that it was Doyoung’s way of trying to say that he was proud of Taeyong, but it wasn’t enough, in all the ways that everything between them had never been enough for Taeyong.
Taeyong refused the peace offering, not trusting himself to be anything but perfectly sober around Doyoung, the heartbreak too near the surface not to spill over and splash all over Doyoung’s outstretched hands. If he drank, if he let Doyoung uncork his guilt and fill Taeyong’s mouth with bubbles, he knew where the night would end – with two cheap wine glasses in his sink and Doyoung in his bed because Doyoung liked the warmth of another person when he was loose limbed from alcohol and Taeyong was too greedy and weak to turn him away. He had always hoped that eventually Doyoung would turn around and find him in the dark, but after years of being too close but never quite close enough, Taeyong decided he had gotten all that he was ever going to get.
He would go to Japan and know the side of the bed Doyoung preferred, the way he liked to be the little spoon until he got too hot. He would know the rhythm, the exact beat count of Doyoung’s heart when Taeyong laid on his chest in the earliest hours of the morning. He would know the way Doyoung sounded when he came, how it had felt when his body tensed next to Taeyong’s, the desperate eroticism of Doyoung’s sleepy moan as he had made a mess out of Taeyong’s sheets.
It was cruel, Taeyong thought, looking at Doyoung standing on his doorstep with his bottle of champagne, to know all of these things about his best friend, about the person he had loved for years but not know how he liked to be kissed.
Three weeks later, Taeyong left for Japan, waving at Doyoung and Jungwoo and the little clutch of their friends standing just behind the security line and wondered if once he was gone Doyoung would pour the champagne for someone else – someone like the handsome kid from the library or someone like his professor – anyone who wasn’t Taeyong.
Two hours and twenty minutes later, as the plane from Seoul landed and he stepped out into his new life, Taeyong decided that he had to learn not to care, that it was time to let Doyoung go, to let Doyoung have crushes, to find other arms to sleep in when he was drunk and lonely, to be someone else’s white knight or fake boyfriend if that’s what Doyoung wanted.
It was time, Taeyong thought, to set them both free. He would strip his hair of the color of Seoul and dye it shade after shade after shade until he could look in the mirror and recognize who he was without Kim Doyoung.
~~
555 days later, Taeyong stood outside of the last place he had been anywhere close to drunk with Doyoung and watched a good looking man he didn’t know throw himself into a taxi to chase after someone that Taeyong cared for deeply and hoped that he had made the right choice in telling Jaehyun to go after Jungwoo.
He fiddled with the vape pen in his pocket and wondered if part of why he had chased after the handsome stranger with the beer stained shoes was because he thought it would have been nice if someone had done that for him, 555 days ago, if someone had told Doyoung to go after him, to beg him stay. Taeyong smiled as the taxi disappeared around the corner and knew that it wouldn’t have mattered if someone had intervened on his behalf because Doyoung wouldn’t have listened, because Doyoung always did what he thought was right, what he thought was best, even if it hurt.
Maybe Jaehyun was easier than Doyoung or maybe he just knew he had more to lose if he didn’t follow, if he didn’t try. Maybe Doyoung had always known that he could watch Taeyong walk away from him, walk all to the other end of the earth and he would never really lose him. Maybe Doyoung had always known that even if Taeyong had never had what Jaehyun had to lose, he would never give up Doyoung’s friendship, would never undo the knot that held them together at their core.
“What happened?” Doyoung appeared next to him, having suppressed his curiosity and his concern just long enough to make sure there was at least a city block between him and his antagonist.
“I told him to go after Jungwoo.” Taeyong smiled and turned away from the place where Jaehyun no longer was to find Doyoung looking at him with a pinched, vaguely disapproving expression. Taeyong tapped Doyoung’s cheek, unable to help himself when Doyoung was like this, all tempest in a teapot and trying not to let his feelings tip over and pour out. He had missed Doyoung’s expressions, missed reading so many of them like a well-worn, much loved book. “I also told him you were sorry about the shoes.”
Doyoung snapped his teeth, trying to nip Taeyong’s teasing finger tip. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t.” Taeyong stroked his cheek with his thumb, just once, just enough to catch the downward tilt of his lips, touching Doyoung in a way he hadn’t in nineteen months. “But I know you well enough to know that you are.”
“I’m only a little bit sorry,” Doyoung said, gently pulling Taeyong’s hand away from his face. “He was really being an ass.” Doyoung chewed on his bottom lip and looked over Taeyong’s shoulder at the street, his brain no doubt already thinking six steps ahead, worrying over what would happen with Jungwoo and his not-a-boyfriend. “I don’t know if I would have told him to go.”
You wouldn’t have , Taeyong thought, not unkindly, 1200km of distance having given him a different perspective on Doyoung, on chances never taken, risks never ventured.
“Well, I don’t know if it was the right call, only time will tell,” Taeyong murmured. Taeyong wondered if Doyoung was aware of the fact that he was still holding on to Taeyong’s wrist, if he knew that his fingers were tracing anxious little shapes on the underside of Taeyong’s hand. He thought that if Doyoung touched him long enough, dug his fingers in deep enough, Taeyong would go back to Japan and tattoo each mark on his skin. “I guess I’m just a hopeless romantic.” He smiled at Doyoung, who wasn’t looking at him, who had yet to really look at him at any of the right moments. “I can’t help but try to give them a happy ending.”
Nine hours ago, Taeyong had looked in the mirror in his tiny apartment in Tokyo and promised himself that this time he would be as bold as his hair, even if he was still as nervous and uncertain as he had been the first time he poured the bleach on his hair, not knowing how it was going to turn out.
“If that happens, I guess I really will have to say sorry for the shoes,” Doyoung said, sounding so put upon that Taeyong had to laugh. “Whatever.” Doyoung’s lips turned up at the corners, his gaze soft when he finally gave it back to Taeyong. “Do you want to go back in for another drink or –”
“Let’s get out of here.” Taeyong chanced linking their hands together, keeping palm to palm, not brave enough yet for the intimacy of interlocking fingers. “I came here to see you and Jungwoo,” Taeyong said, pulling Doyoung away from a bar full of people who would probably want a piece of Doyoung. “And Jungwoo is gone, so that just leaves you.”
Doyoung squeezed Taeyong’s hand. “So, me and you, then?”
Taeyong thought about what Jungwoo’s distraught mystery man had said to him when Taeyong had said that he and Doyoung weren’t like that, weren’t together in that kind of way and wondered if there was something Doyoung had shown to Jaehyun that he had never shown to Taeyong. Taeyong wanted to see it, just like he had always wanted to know what Doyoung had shown to everyone but him, why everyone but Doyoung seemed to think that they were together. Eighteen months, one international move, seven hair colors, a handful of lovers and two drinks later, Taeyong was determined to see it, determined enough to take the risk of being completely alone with Kim Doyoung for the first time since Taeyong had told him to keep his champagne and keep his distance.
“Yup, you and me,” Taeyong murmured. “Let’s do it. Let’s walk home.”
“Home.” Doyoung’s face was red. Taeyong wanted to kiss the apples of his cheeks to feel the warmth. “It’s a steep walk, you know.”
“I remember,” Taeyong said, knowing that fifty years wouldn’t have been long enough for his feet to forget the way from the bar to Doyoung’s front door, to the bed where they inevitably ended up. Taeyong smiled and pulled Doyoung forward, willing to take the first step. “But we can take our time getting there.”
~~
Somewhere beneath the thin layer of smog and clouds, the moon was bright. Doyoung’s hand was soft and sticky sweet against Taeyong’s. It was awkward, at first, trying to fall into a cadence that had once been as natural as breathing, but as the road started to wind its way uphill, it got easier, their lungs and calves aching too much to have either of them in a rush.
“My apartment in Japan is up a hill, too, you know,” Taeyong said, gaze flicking over to Doyoung’s flushed, slightly sweaty face. “Same with the office. And the studio. Even though I know I have to be going down hill half the time, I feel like I’m always walking up something.”
“I didn’t know that.” Doyoung wiped his forehead with the hand that wasn’t holding Taeyong’s, very deliberately not meeting Taeyong’s eyes. “You never said much about it. Tokyo, that is. What you do and where you go when you aren’t working.”
It was a fair accusation. He hadn’t said much about it. The life he lived without Doyoung, the person he had become when Doyoung had told him to leave, to be somewhere that Doyoung was not.
Taeyong had spent the first year in Japan untangling his life from Doyoung’s, pulling out thread after thread of a shared history until he felt naked enough to start designing something new for himself. He changed his hair, put ink to skin and needles to his eyebrows and ears, playing with his body as canvas as he dove into his art. He pushed himself out of his comfort zone just enough to make a few friends, a tiny little circle of other creatives who drove him crazy more often than not, as mercurial and emotional as Doyoung would have said Taeyong was on his best days, but also passionate and devoted to their art in a way that made Taeyong feel seen and understood for the first time in his life. There had even been a lover, or two, not quite serious, but not quite casual either, but something far enough in between for Taeyong to have learned the difference between lust, infatuation and love.
At the end of it all, he had a small apartment, a small group of friends, and a small opportunity to make it big while surviving on an even smaller salary. But in Tokyo, a year after Doyoung had broken his heart, Taeyong was surprised to find that if he painted his hair a pretty color and poured himself his new life, on his best days, he could be something close to happy.
At first he hadn’t said anything because it was a pathetic, comforting form of revenge for being sent away, but as time had passed and Taeyong had licked his wounds enough to no longer need to behave like an injured, terrified animal, he didn’t know how to tell Doyoung he was doing okay without him. It felt like a betrayal, somehow to be happy somewhere Doyoung was not, even though it was probably what Doyoung would have wanted, even though it was what Taeyong had learned to want for Doyoung, too.
After so long, he didn't know how to start again, how to talk about the hills he climbed or the people he knew who had never heard Doyoung’s name come out of Taeyong’s mouth or his favorite restaurant or the one time he had tried to play minigolf. Rubbing his thumb over Doyoung’s knuckles, Taeyong searched for the moon beneath the clouds and remembered how easy it had once been to talk, to share anything and everything, how all it had taken to become best friends was standing next to one another, nervous but excited, facing the great unknown at freshman orientation. He told himself that it would be okay, that Doyoung was his best friend, the person who knew him best in the world, even if for the better part of 555 days, Taeyong hadn’t let himself be really known at all.
“That’s mostly what I do,” Taeyong said, stopping for a moment to lean against a lamp-post halfway up the second steepest hill on the way to the neighborhood where he used to live, where Doyoung lived still. “Work. Like you and your dissertation, sometimes it feels all consuming.”
“Please don’t say the word dissertation in my presence ever again.” Doyoung shivered dramatically, his wide mouth twisting into an adorably ugly frown. “I haven’t yet recovered from the trauma.”
“My poor baby, you worked so hard.” Taeyong laughed, pulling Doyoung into his orbit, watching a bead of sweat drip down the curve of his neck. Doyoung’s hand slipped out of his as the possessive slipped out of Taeyong’s lips.
Taeyong put empty fingers in his pocket and curled them around his phone, just to have something to hold. Doyoung had worked hard. Taeyong knew it in almost excruciating detail. Once upon a time, Doyoung had been almost reluctant to talk to him about his thesis, but with a gulf the size of the East Sea between them, it had become their raft, keeping them from drowning in the waves of all the things they no longer said to one another.
“Done in eighteen months, just like you said,” Taeyong murmured, tipping his chin down to try and catch Doyoung’s gaze, wondering if Doyoung was remembering their last night together as he stared at his feet. “Here we are. I’m a little bit late, but my hair’s a different color and your thesis is done.” Doyoung continued to inspect his shoes. Sighing, giving up on Doyoung meeting him where he Taeyong was trying to go, Taeyong pushed off the lamp post and started walking again, his calves already burning in protest. “Ah, our Doyoung, always a man of his word.”
“Wait,” Doyoung called after him, long fingers circling Taeyong’s wrist and pulling it out of his pocket, his phone clattering to the street and bouncing off the curb. “Shit, sorry,” Doyoung said, so clearly and cutely flustered that Taeyong didn’t really care that his new case had been chipped on the corner. “I’ll replace it,” Doyoung muttered, dusting it off and wiping the screen with the bottom of the t-shirt that was the exact color of blue Taeyong had once said suited him best.
He wondered how often Doyoung wore the color, if Doyoung had been pleased with his outfit when Taeyong surprised him at the bar, if he had thought of Taeyong as he had stood in front of his closet and picked out his clothes.
“No need,” Taeyong said, squeezing Doyoung’s tense, hunched shoulder. “Damage adds character.”
“How poetic,” Doyoung teased, even though his lips were still turned down. “Oh. What’s this?” Doyoung asked as Taeyong reached over to take the phone, too busy staring at the lockscreen to notice Taeyong’s outstretched palm.
Doyoung’s thumb traced over the image, a picture of Doyoung’s back on the graduation day Taeyong had missed because Taeyong worked and lived in a place that was too far away to be present, to be able to be there for all of Doyoung’s wins and losses, a place where Doyoung had sent him away. Jungwoo had texted the picture to Taeyong along with a series of heart-eye and confetti emojis. Doyoung had sent him a series of standard order selfies and group photos, but in this one, Doyoung’s hand was on his hip, clutching at his cap, and his head was tipped up towards a cloudy sky, the purple black robes hanging off of his proud shoulders.
He had stayed away because he wasn’t sure it was his place to come back, but he had taken one look at Jungwoo’s message and missed Doyoung so fiercely, wanting his arm to be around those shoulders, wishing that Doyoung had been holding the curve of Taeyong’s waist as they both looked at the horizon together. That night, he dreamed of Doyoung, dreamed of Doyoung tying him to a four-poster bed that never could have fit in his cramped apartment and coming on Taeyong’s chest, moaning just like he had when he had been asleep in Taeyong’s arms but this time saying his name over and over again like it was the only word he knew.
The next morning, Doyoung was Taeyong’s lockscreen for the first time in a year and a half. Two hours later, Taeyong had applied for three days of vacation and started looking for flights that could get him back to where hadn’t been in so long, tired of working around the Doyoung shaped void in his life.
“I’ve never seen this one before.” Doyoung’s cheeks were as pink as his lips as he handed the phone over. “Where did you get this?”
“Where else? Jungwoo. He’s my number one Doie supplier.”
“Why would you ask him when you could ask me?
The little hint of jealousy in Doyoung’s voice tugged at the corners of Taeyong’s lips. “Who said I asked?” Taeyong put his phone back in his pocket and held out his hand to help Doyoung up from his cringing little crouch near the curb. “He just assumed. Most people do when it comes to me and you.”
Down on his knees, Doyoung looked at him through his lashes and murmured, “Still?”
“Mmmhmm. Still,” Taeyong said, thinking about how nice it would be to run his fingertips over Doyoung’s eyelashes, how much he wanted to bend down and kiss his forehead. “Doie. I’m sorry I missed it, I should have been there.”
“Don’t be sorry. You’re here now,” Doyoung said, taking the help he was offered, standing close enough that Taeyong could smell a little bit of his cherry vape on Doyoung’s shirt.
Taeyong thought about how Doyoung’s rapid fire responses had been riddled with typos and exclamations when he sent the screenshot of his itinerary – three days stolen from his new life and responsibilities after what felt like a century of being away – and said, “I should have come sooner.”
“You’re busy.” Doyoung shook his head and started to lead them up the street, once again holding Taeyong’s hand, looking very serious, very self-sacrificial Doyoung when he said, “You have your work, your own life. I understand.”
Doyoung probably did understand, Taeyong knew, having finally come to the conclusion somewhere between days 322 and 403 of separation that Doyoung may not have meant to hurt him, to make him feel like Doyoung just didn’t love him enough to want him to stay.
“I am busy.” Taeyong shrugged, forcing his tired feet to start walking again as he tried to find the words to say the thing he had needed to say for months and months, since the moment he saw his first design made real, fabric stitched together by hands that weren’t his own, his art wrapped around another person’s body and put on display. “But you were right, you know.”
“About what?” Doyoung looked at him over his shoulder as he pulled them along, closer and closer to home.
Taeyong squeezed his hand and sighed. “Sending me away.”
Stricken, Doyoung stopped in the middle of the sidewalk so abruptly that Taeyong almost tripped over Doyoung’s heels. “That wasn’t what I —“
“Telling me to go,” Taeyong interrupted, bringing Doyoung’s palm to his cheek, pressing it there until Doyoung’s eyes returned to their normal shape, no longer as round and bright as the moon. “Not letting me give into the urge to stay.” Taeyong smiled and chanced a single kiss to the edge of Doyoung’s wrist, the happy news he had waited to share until they were alone together on the tip of his tongue. “Doyoung. Doie. I was offered a promotion. I’ve been given the chance to design a solo collection for the Spring.”
“Congratulations,” Doyoung said, his smile so beautiful and proud that Taeyong almost forgot all of the early days he had spent alone in Japan, homesick and lonely, wondering why he had given up everything he thought he wanted. “You’ll do so well.”
I couldn’t have done it without you , Taeyong wanted to tell him, even if the truth was something closer to it, I couldn't have done it if you hadn’t made me go without you.
“I think I will do well,” Taeyong said instead, not sure how to say thank you to Doyoung for breaking his heart, not when he still wasn’t entirely certain of how it was all going to turn out. “I really think I will.” Taeyong laughed as Doyoung pulled him into a loose hug, their joined hands squished awkwardly between their hips. “And so will you, Professor Kim.”
“Not a professor. I have to find a job first,” Doyoung said, resting his chin on Taeyong’s shoulder, his jaw cutting into Taeyong’s collarbone as he spoke. “There’s shockingly little demand for an expert in pansori epic chant.”
“There, there.” Taeyong put his other hand on Doyoung’s back, patting him like a great big baby who had achieved great big things. Taeyong hid his smile in Doyoung’s hair. “Welllll…I told Jungwoo that he could come to Tokyo and be my model, but since I’m pretty sure he’s going to be well kept and otherwise occupied, if you are looking for a job, I guess I could take you on instead.”
“You asked Jungwoo first?”
Doyoung’s indignation was so funny Taeyong doubled over laughing, falling out the hug and deeper into trouble. “Why not? He’s very pretty. He could wear my designs well.”
Doyoung’s frown threatened to turn into a deep pout. “Am I not pretty enough for you?”
“Baby.” Taeyong bit back his giggles and crowded into Doyoung’s personal space, putting one hand on his chest just like he had in the bar, liking the way Doyoung’s heart jumped beneath his touch. “You’re the hottest expert in epic pansori chant I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s a really low bar to clear.” Doyoung snorted, laughter rumbling through his chest and into Taeyong’s. “Practically on the ground.”
“Liar,” Taeyong said, rocking them back and forth slowly, a slow dance without music on a badly lit sidewalk. “You were always mooning over your advisor’s visuals.”
“True.” Doyoung hummed under his breath, seemingly content to sway with Taeyong, to follow his lead. “But unfortunately for the pansori community, Professor Kim is an expert in jeongak composition.”
“You’re so pedantic.”
“But hot and pedantic.”
“That’s right. The hottest and most pedantic pansori chant expert in the entire world.” Taeyong stepped back, holding Doyoung at arm’s length so he could let Doyoung see the shine in his gaze, the warmth he hoped was in the smile his mother had always told him was his prettiest. “And I couldn’t be more proud of him.”
“Gross.” Doyoung cringed, but Taeyong could tell how pleased he really was, when he laced their fingers together and swung their hands together as he tugged Taeyong out from under the streetlight and up the last steep stretch before it was all downhill.
“Even though I missed everything, I’m proud of you, too,” Doyoung said quietly once they finally made it to the top, slightly winded and sweaty enough to yearn for air conditioning and something cold to drink. “I can’t wait to see what you do next.”
“Order takeout, probably.” Taeyong yelped as Doyoung pinched the skin between thumb and finger. “What? Bar fights and intervening in Jungwoo’s boy problems worked up my appetite.”
“You’re the worst.” Doyoung shoved his phone into Taeyong’s chest. “Here. Buy yourself whatever junk food you want.”
Taeyong thought about protesting that he should have been the one to treat but he knew that Doyoung liked to buy, so he let him have his way, pretending not to see the way Doyoung blushed as Taeyong took note of the wallpaper image of the first of his designs to ever be shown in a magazine.
“You’re so sweet to me,” Taeyong teased, meaning every word as he let Doyoung guide him down the hill while he bought all the late night snacks he had missed almost as much as Doyoung in the last 555 days.
“Just get inside.”
Doyoung opened the door to the last place they had been completely alone together, the place where Taeyong had cried and Doyoung held him but didn’t kiss him goodbye. It looked much the same as it had before, similar enough that Taeyong felt some of his good mood slip away as he put on the same set of house slippers that he had been “his” for all the time that he and Doyoung had never really been an actual couple. He wondered if anyone else had put their feet in what had been his slippers, walked around Doyoung’s apartment and slept in Doyoung’s bed.
“Sit.” Doyoung pointed at his sagging couch and drifted into the tiny kitchen, bending down and digging through his fridge.
“Doyoung,” Taeyong said to the back of Doyoung’s head, while playing with his fingers between the spread of his knees. “Are you seeing anyone?”
The curve of Doyoung’s back smoothed out, his shoulders suddenly so straight that Taeyong thought he could have walked down a runway. He stood up slowly, silently reaching into his cabinet, the clanking of glass on glass so loud in the quiet that it hurt Taeyong’s ears.
“No, I’m not,” Doyoung said, turning around and holding out the last gift he had tried to give to Taeyong. “Here, this is still for you.”
Taeyong took the champagne with hands that were probably too anxious to be trusted with holding something so dear, biting his lip as Doyoung sat down next to him on the couch, the dip in the cushions pushing them close enough together than their thighs touched. Taeyong traced the name of a champagne house he had never heard of, in a country he had yet to visit, where he hoped one day to see his designs in a show and knew that he wanted Doyoung to be there to see that dream come true.
Doyoung had broken his heart, once, but as Taeyong tried to shape his lips around the words Veuve Clicquot , he understood that Doyoung had broken his own heart too, putting love on ice so they could each become something more.
“We should open it,” Doyoung murmured, putting his hand over Taeyong’s useless fingers and helping him peel back the gold foil until Taeyong could see carefully twisted wire, the little cage holding in the cork. “To celebrate.”
“Yeah.” Taeyong’s heart squeezed, 555 days of compressed longing in his lungs. “Alright.”
Taeyong let Doyoung take the bottle, watching his neatly trimmed nails as he curled his thumb and finger around the cork and slowly twisted, carefully and deliberately, until Taeyong heard the little sigh of the bottle opening, pressure that had been trapped for years escaping into the quiet stillness of Doyoung’s living room. The bubbles were beautiful as they filled his glass, little streams of hollowed out light.
“To your latest promotion,” Doyoung said, handing over a half-filled glass, white foam still settling into a soft yellow.
“To your Ph.D.,” Taeyong said, touching the rim of glass to Doyoung’s in a toast that waited so long to happen and admired the way Doyoung’s throat moved as he took a sip. It was delicious, the taste of champagne that had been kept in Doyoung’s fridge for eighteen months, a luxury that Taeyong had never yet had before. “To both of us doing what needed to be done to get to this place.”
“Taeyong,” Doyoung started, turning to him with reddened cheeks and champagne wet lips. “Are you –”
The buzzer rang, Taeyong’s late night nostalgic snacks interrupting whatever it was Doyoung wanted to know, had wanted to ask. Taeyong took Doyoung’s glass as Doyoung stood up on legs that seemed to shake and watched the bubbles, watched as they curved up from the bottom of the glass and broke on the top, putting a little bit more in his mouth to feel the tickle on his tongue, to give him the last little bit of courage he needed to say the things he had crossed the East Sea to say.
“When I asked Jungwoo if he wanted to come to Tokyo, I told him that he would have to sleep on my couch,” Taeyong said, smiling faintly when Doyoung looked at him with his eyebrows raised, standing in the middle of the living room with a bag of junk food dangling from his wrist. “Doyoung,” Taeyong murmured, standing up with his champagne, “if it were you, if you wanted to visit, if you wanted to stay – for one night, for two, forever – you wouldn’t have to sleep on the couch.”
“Where would I sleep then?” Doyoung swallowed and put down the bag, snacks that Taeyong was now too nervous to eat spilling onto Doyoung’s kitchen counter.
“Next to me,” Taeyong said, taking another step closer. “With me.” Doyoung’s face flushed and his lips parted. Taeyong poured what remained of the bubbles down his throat, hoping that he would taste like champagne when they kissed. “In me,” Taeyong murmured, coming close enough for Doyoung to touch, to take him and have him. “If that’s what you wanted.”
“Is that what you want?” Doyoung asked, reaching out with a hand that quivered as much as his voice to take the empty flute, placing it next to honey butter chips. “To be with me like that?”
“I love you,” Taeyong said, telling Doyoung once and for all what had been true three months after freshman orientation, when Doyoung was interested in ground effect aerodynamics, when he got out of Doyoung’s bed the morning after Doyoung had told him to go to Japan, and 555 days later. “I still love you,” Taeyong said again, “and I have always wanted to be with you like that.”
“Oh.”
Doyoung braced himself on the counter, his complete shock as charming to Taeyong as it had been when Taeyong had walked into the bar and hugged him from the back, a whispered surprise on the tip of his tongue, stolen by the way Doyoung had shouted his name before catching a single glimpse of his face.
“I want to tell people we’re together,” Taeyong said, putting his palm on Doyoung’s warm, disbelieving cheek and thumbing the corner of his suspiciously damp eyes. “And have it be because we are.” Doyoung leaned into his touch, eyes fluttering shut. “Baby, don’t you think we’ve waited long enough?”
Doyoung nodded as Taeyong kissed his forehead, the place where his hair was supposed to part, and finally the pretty curve of Doyoung’s upper lip, discovering that the taste of Doyoung’s champagne was infinitely sweeter when Doyoung put an arm around Taeyong’s waist and kissed him in return.