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1. secrets
"Yuta, there's something I need to tell you."
Muttered faintly under his breath. Rehearsing a line.
Slipping through the illusion, over the clash of magic-induced hallucinatory swords, and straight into Taeyong's ears.
Taeyong, whose brows furrow.
"… What did I just hear?" He whips around blindly in Jaehyun's direction, his character’s translucent pink armour still shimmering over his sweater. He doesn’t need any context to understand. Managing a hasty, Sorry guys!, Taeyong quickly gulps down the counteragent to exit the game mid-round. The hallucination breaks down. "Are you practicing your goodbye speech already? Now? Jaehyun! You’ve been on four dates! You’re not even official yet."
Jaehyun’s purposefully avoiding his gaze, staring up at the ceiling from where he's flat on the couch. "It's not a goodbye speech. And I usually tell people much earlier."
A spark of a panic darts through Taeyong's stomach.
No, no, no—not yet.
He folds his arms over his chest, now free of the clutter of in-game accessories. "Oh, right, and what 'usually' happens after you tell them, hm?"
To his credit, Jaehyun doesn’t try to sneak around it. "They leave."
"That’s right," Taeyong says.
He knows he’s being cruel. Would’ve known even if Jaehyun didn’t flinch the slightest bit at that, cheek turning like he'd been hit. But after that first date with the enigmatic Nakamoto Yuta last month, Jaehyun had been glowing with a lazy contentment, simmering with a precious, absent-minded hope that Taeyong had seen too little from him since they were graduated high school.
Sighing, Taeyong pulls himself up to perch on the arm of the couch.
"Which is it? Does Yuta have any connection to your dad, or does he have a bad history with love?"
"Neither," Jaehyun mutters. Just as Taeyong thought. "I just feel like I should tell him. Everyone I’ve gone out with has changed their minds about me once they hear about what my dad did, which Jeong family I'm from, I can’t keep this from him, especially since I actually like him this time—"
"When was the last time you waited with someone?" Taeyong demands. "Jaehyunie, come on. I believe in you. Your best friend believes that you can woo the hell out of this guy, and if Nakamoto Yuta’s as much of an angel as you’ve been saying he is, he won’t care what your asshole of a father did for a living a long time ago. It’s been nearly ten years."
Jaehyun stays silent.
This is a conversation that they’ve rehashed too many times before: Taeyong trying to convince him that he isn’t his father, Jaehyun pulling up the same parallels each time. But he looks like me, and I look like him. But he dealt in love, and love is all I can think about. Taeyong's mind retraces those paths like he's sure Jaehyun's is, too.
The twisted grief that always flickers across Jaehyun's face when they stray near the topic is crossing Jaehyun's expression now. It makes Taeyong falter.
There is very little that can convince Taeyong from his stance itself, but he can try a different approach.
He nudges his socked foot against Jaehyun’s, softening his voice. "It’s going well, right? You like him, this Yuta of yours?"
Jaehyun breathes the words out, like he already can't live without him. "So much. I've never met anyone like him, I swear."
"Then don’t tell him for a little longer," Taeyong says. There is a tiny wave of guilt in his chest, just because of course he knows that it’s not good to keep things from your partner, or anyone close to you—Gods, does he know. But Jaehyun and Yuta are still so new to each other, like a fresh wound. For them, for now, it's a sacrifice for the greater good. "Just wait a little longer, so he at least has the chance to fall for you. It's easier than you think, you know."
When Jaehyun says, "Fine," Taeyong's lips pull into a smile. His heart is lifting, but his stomach drops.
2. broken hearts
Taeyong wants Jaehyun to be happy. He really, really does. It isn’t about his crush on Jaehyun when they first met as fourteen-year-old lab partners. That’s ancient history, more or less. Now they are friends, the closest friends in the whole world. Taeyong settles for it. He's close to Jaehyun as he can be. Roommates. Best friends.
But those first few months after his dad was arrested, Jaehyun had shut himself off to even Taeyong.
It was all over the news. Bar owner discovered to have sold illegal love potions faces thirty years in prison. A handsome middle-aged man beaming even as his footing slipped in court, Jaehyun’s deep dimples carved into his gaunt cheeks.
To brew a love potion—even to sell them, to have a thriving business with them, facilitating gods know how many coerced exchanges easily swept under the rug—might not send a man to prison for life, but news like that was inescapable.
Jaehyun does not often raise his voice, yet the first time Jaehyun had contacted his father in months, Taeyong overheard him shouting into the phone, "Then what about Mom? You said she left me here because she'd had to work, that that was why she couldn't care for me. Were you lying about that, too?" His voice was hard. "You said you loved her—but did she really love you?"
He'd always had a rocky relationship with his father, but that was the moment Taeyong knew for sure that Jaehyun has never known what lay underneath the glamour of his father's popular bar or his charming customer service smile.
Years later, public interest in Jaehyun’s father has long died down, and Jaehyun himself is doing much better as well—at least on the surface. He’s started to meet people, or try to.
He’s been a romantic as long as Taeyong's known him, always whispering about gorgeous customers he'd met in his father's bar back when he was still a young boy doing homework there. After leaving home, Jaehyun likes to describe the boy who lives beneath his eyelids, a sharp hawk gaze and painted nails, who visits him in every dream, his personal fantasy. Oblivious to the way Taeyong's grin grows forced.
Then every person Jaehyun went out with broke his barely-healed heart.
The girls. The boys. Jaehyun would inevitably have a conversation with them detailing sins that weren’t his own, and by the time Taeyong timidly stepped out into the kitchen, Jaehyun would be alone, expression defeated but mild. Resigned. I'm okay, it wasn't bad. The boy who’d always been a romantic, no longer believing in his own happily-ever-after.
The more it happened, the more Jaehyun's patience seemed to thin. All too eager to test the newest person he'd fallen for too fast, the thrill of a new relationship blurring with the fear of getting closer, he would go out for his second date, even first, and return with that mild, defeated expression quicker than ever before.
So this thing with Yuta? It has to work out.
Taeyong refuses to simply stand at the sidelines anymore. Jaehyun’s father has stolen too much time from Jaehyun’s life. He has stolen Jaehyun’s passion for brewing potions. His confidence in his appearance, seeing ghosts in the mirror. His hope in romance. In love.
If Jaehyun sees his hands as cuffed as long as his father's are, Taeyong’s are still free. He will not allow this love potion criminal who is worlds away from Jeong Jaehyun to take even more from him, when the bars of a cell are supposed to shut him safely away.
Even if it means keeping the lovely Nakamoto Yuta in the dark just a little while longer.
After all, everyone has their secrets, right?
3. a third wheel
Nakamoto Yuta still isn't Jaehyun's official boyfriend by the time he first meets Taeyong. Taeyong's starting to think he might never be.
Jaehyun isn't even the one that introduces them. It is, by all means, an accident, and one so dreamy it is cliché at that. In the evening Taeyong will grumble silently that if he hadn't found out within the span of five minutes that the man sharing an umbrella with him was the subject of Jaehyun's nearly embarrassingly grievous affections, Taeyong probably would have asked him out.
But Taeyoung does find out. He's the one with the umbrella heading home after work, and he's the one who approaches first, because he can't just watch the soaked figure beside him under the bus stop sign continue to shiver under the relentless rain. "Hey, is this okay?"
The man's sharp eyes, suddenly cast in shadow as Taeyong leans the umbrella over him, widen. "Oh. Yeah, thanks."
The bus is running late. They stand there without a word for about a minute, but then Taeyong can't bear it.
The man looks like a character from Taeyong's favourite video game, stunning and full of personality, even if his blond-streaked black hair is plastered to his forehead, the black paint on his nails is chipped, and he is wearing an honest to goodness tracksuit in the pouring rain. Something about his gaze when it accidentally meets Taeyong's own is a little irresistible.
"I'm Taeyong. You're not from here, are you?"
"How can you tell, is it obvious?"
"Not at all, just—you speak with a bit of a regional accent," Taeyong says sweetly. "I'd guess you're from the south, though probably a city as big as this one. So, am I right?"
Once again, the man raises his eyebrows, but then his lips quirk. "Spot on. I'm Yuta."
Taeyong freezes so quickly it's probably comical. "Your last name wouldn't be Nakamoto, would it?"
Yuta blinks. Then blinks again. "Taeyong, like… Jaehyun's roommate? He talks about you all the time, actually. Sorry, I'm terrible with names, it's my fault I didn't recognise yours."
He talks about you all the time. Taeyong tries not to look too pleased, but Yuta's studying him very carefully now, even if his voice is still friendly, still soft, still casual. Like he's seeing something very telling on Taeyong's face that is incredibly irritating not to be privy to. Or like he's searching for something there, expecting something. It makes Taeyong's cheeks heat up. "It's fine. Um, so, are you new to town?"
"Yeah," Yuta says, nearly distracted. "I won't be staying—"
He breaks off suddenly, but it's not enough for alarm bells not to begin ringing red-violent in Taeyong's head. The rain is so loud, he must have misheard. Jaehyun never dates casually, but he's never mentioned a time limit to his semi-unsuccessful courtship of Yuta. In fact, with every passing day, Jaehyun seems to be falling even harder.
A picture-perfect love story Taeyong's nearly jealous of. It cannot have an expiry date.
"Sorry?"
"Just that I won't be staying at Riku's house for much longer, hopefully. He's my baby cousin who I'm living with at the moment while apartment-hunting. Who knows, maybe I'll find one by yours."
The phrasing sounds strange. Taeyong's alarm bells refuse to shut off, and he trusts them. Contrarily, his baseline trust for Nakamoto Yuta is gradually slipping downwards. Yuta is so sweet, Taeyong. Yuta is shy and will barely say a word around strangers, Taeyong. I know Yuta so well already, everything about him, even if he keeps claiming we're just friends. I know it's fishy but it feels right, I'm going to tell him, soon, soon—
Nothing is matching up.
"Maybe," Taeyong concedes brightly.
When they get on the bus, he chooses the seat behind Yuta and stares at his dark hair like it will reveal answers. It doesn't.
By the time Taeyong gets home, his socks are full of water. All he wants is a hot shower to wash away the troubles in his stomach, the memory of Yuta and his all too perceptive eyes flashing across his vision each time he dares to blink. Jaehyun's door is closed but the lights are open, music seeping out from the crack. He is singing along to an R&B ballad, deep tenor carefree and passionate. Taeyong stands nearby for a few moments before he sighs and makes for the bathroom, hugging a clean change of clothes.
As steam clouds the mirror, Taeyong's muscles, cramped both from hours brewing in the kitchen and from clutching his umbrella, finally untense. This time when he closes his eyes, warm water sliding down his shoulders, it's not Yuta who invades his head, but instead the normal, familiar image of Jeong Jaehyun.
Him. Always him.
Taeyong thought the sour taste on his tongue was suspicion, but he realises now, bitter-sweet, that it's far more likely to just be jealousy.
He wants Jaehyun to be happy. He really does. But Taeyong's told Jaheyun over and over how good a guy Jaehyun is, how they might work in the potions industry but they will never hurt people the way his father did, of how deserving of love he is, of how beautiful he is, and Jaehyun has taken it with a simple nod, a placating smile. The deep dimples he still tugs at while brushing his teeth in the mornings, before heading off to work.
It's not enough for Jaehyun. Taeyong is not enough for him.
So he will tamp down the sourness, the unfounded suspicion, the jealousy. Just as long as Yuta eventually makes an honest shot at their common goal—to make Jaehyun happy.
There, that's Taeyong's secret.
4. unrequited love
Taeyong might have gone to potions school, but he doesn't actually know much more about love potions than most people do. There was a unit on it in the required Introduction to Brewing course—first year—but only in theory, never in practice. He knows they often turn people's irises pink when coming into effect, and that their taste can vary depending on who is serving or consuming it, but most of all he knows, Love potions are never good. Love potions hurt people because it takes away their agency and their true emotions.
A warning, not an instruction.
But he'd be lying if he hadn't thought once or twice of brewing one.
Not with the motivation to harm or to take or to anything, but with the same foolish heart that a young, lovelorn schoolgirl might have, wondering about the same thing. He'd just loved for so long, yet Jaehyun's never looked twice in his direction with anything more than a steady, purely platonic gaze, a touch of friendly humour. Potion magic is entrenched in their society, and there's bound to be recipes out there that are illegal, but not hard to find.
Except Taeyong isn't a young, lovelorn schoolgirl, and he definitely knows better.
Rubbing his eyes as he stumbles out of his room, he starts when he comes face-to-face with Nakamoto Yuta tip-toeing out the bathroom.
The two of them stare at each other across the narrow hallway that shouldn't even be counted as a hallway. Yuta's wearing a faded, oversized blood-red t-shirt, looking effortlessly attractive at four in the morning, and Taeyong's chest squeezes.
"Oh, hey, Taeyong," Yuta says in a whisper.
Taeyong hisses back, "When did you get here? Did you sleep over?"
They're both whispering for a sleeping Jaehyun's sake. It's such a weird feeling, standing so close to someone Jaehyun's been pining after for multiple months now.
Yuta still doesn't know about everything. Jaehyun still hasn't told him.
Taeyong's always tried to keep his distance from Jaehyun's partners or crushes for his own sanity, but Yuta, it turns out, is unavoidable after you first meet him. Doyoung and Johnny have mentioned it too, how Yuta just turns up places where they are, how he might seem bashful but is unexpectedly gregarious when it comes to Jaehyun's friends. They say it with a fond amusement. Taeyong is neither fond nor amused. After they first met, Taeyong has bumped into Yuta on five more separate occasions, none of which were specifically planned by Jaehyun. This makes six.
"Yeah," Yuta whispers. "Don't worry, though, we didn't—we've never—we're not—it was just sleeping." He coughs, having the decency to blush slightly. "Also, I've been meaning to talk to you. Can we go to your room?"
Taeyong is unreasonably flustered. "To… me? You're dating my best friend."
"I'm not?" Yuta blinks at him. "I mean, we can go outside if you want, it's just inconvenient to always be whispering—"
"Fine," Taeyong snaps, crossing his arms. "Go inside, I'll be there in a minute."
He gets ready. Stares into the glass after washing his face. He can nearly see Jaehyun's reflection in it even if he's not there, pulling at his own dimples again, and Taeyong isn't sure why but he finds himself reaching for makeup, dabbing colour onto his pale cheeks, smoothing out the groove of his scar, glazing his cracked lips until they glisten. Armour like his character wears in his video game.
Yuta either doesn't notice or doesn't care. Taeyong's skin prickles, but the sensation is drowned out immediately, his blood running cold as Yuta calmly states, "You love him, don't you?"
"What? No," Taeyong's mouth says, more confident than he feels. "What are you even saying—?"
"But you know exactly who I'm talking about without any context?" Yuta joins Taeyong at the edge of his bed, the covers still unmade. "I'm really sorry to say this, but you're not an extraordinary liar. No one else I've talked to acts like they know, but I feel like it's just because they've known the two of you too long. To me, it's kind of obvious."
"I don't get what you're saying."
There is something very sad in Yuta's eyes. "Jaehyun. Your roommate—"
"He's not my roommate, he's my best friend," Taeyong says tersely, because he hates being referred to as Jaehyun's roommate, and it's even worse the other way around. "Can we get that clear, at least? Gods."
"Okay, your best friend," Yuta yields. His hands are curled into loose fists in his lap. His words are accusing, but his posture is all gentle lines, hazy, vulnerable. Why does he look so helpless, when he's attacking Taeyong, not the other way around? "I'm not trying to back you into a corner, or to get you to confess anything. At least… not to me. But Taeyong, there's something I need to tell you. It's—it's important. Will you please hear me out?"
It's on the tip of his tongue.
Go.
Please go.
You are here, and my best friend is head over heels for you, will give you the moon, will do everything in all those romantic idioms for your sake even if you've known each other barely three months. You might claim you're not dating, but it is easy to fall in love with Jaehyun, so I am already trying my best to be happy for you two.
I will move out and I will go to your wedding and I will write a speech for it. I will know your coffee order and buy you your favourite music and bake a cake for your birthday until we are friends, despite the serpent in my mouth that wants to do nothing more than consume you. I will do anything for you as he trails farther away from me and closer to you, but gods, the one thing I cannot do is sit here docile as you of all people lay my guiltiest, most guarded secret bare. Is that really so hard to understand?
Only that would be a lie, too, because Taeyong would do that. He's doing it now.
He lifts his chin—only to nod.
5. love potions
When Nakamoto Yuta was seventeen, he walked into a bar underage and was let in without question.
It was mid-day during some summer more than a decade ago. Even though it was almost completely empty, the bar was still open. Yuta was here on a trip with a couple of friends, his first time on vacation without his parents. One of his friends liked the other, but he didn't mind being the third wheel much. Until his friend—the one with the crush—begged him to accompany them to some bar they claimed was well-known. Yes, you. Yes, just you. He's gone to try some local delicacy, right? Before he gets back—let's sneak out!
Yuta's friend was well-prepared with a pair of fake IDs. To Yuta's shock, the man inside didn't even demand them, only asking pleasantly, So what can I get you today?
Admittedly, there was someone else in the bar, too. A boy just their age was sitting at the counter, doing homework. But he had black hair and a strong jaw like the bartender aged thirty years younger. And the bartender, smiling like it was fixed on his face, had these deep dimples. When Yuta, sitting between his friend and the boy, was caught staring curiously over at him, the boy flashed a pair of dimples, too.
His friend asked the bartender for some drink that Yuta hadn't noticed on the menu, but Yuta didn't think twice of it, just hoping it didn't have alcohol or any other adults-only magic substance.
The boy piped up a moment before the bartender grabbed a few ingredients, Dad, could you make me a revitaliser? I think I'm about to fall asleep.
The bartender's smile tightened. Your schoolwork should be easy for you, no?
A revitaliser, Dad, the boy repeated.
The bartender turned away from him without a word, and the boy lowered his gaze to his homework again. Yuta couldn't tell who had won, only that a battle had taken place in the span of a few sentences.
A bottle was set down on the counter in front of Yuta before the bartender headed into the back room. His friend reached for it just as the boy said, Oh, that's mine, and took it, unscrewing the top and knocking it back as if taking a shot, like in the movies. There must not have been a lot inside because the boy soon set it down.
Yuta was still looking at him.
The boy glanced at him, and for a second, his irises burned bright pink. He smiled again, this time wider, and asked, Hey, what's your name?
"Oh no," Taeyong says, his voice coming out a strangled whisper, and this time it wasn't simply to keep Jaehyun from waking.
"I'm sorry," Yuta says, and his hands are shaking. "I didn't know. I promise I didn't know, not when he was drinking it, and not after, but he kept asking my name and I was too freaked out to tell him, and the bartender was still in the back room and my friend was still waiting and I suddenly realised that something was wrong. That the revitaliser the boy asked for was never coming. I grabbed my friend and dragged them out with me, found our other friend and stomped on the pedal. But we shouldn't have left. It was my fault—"
"Yuta—"
"—and it took years, but eventually I realised I had to fix it."
"I can't—you have to tell me exactly who you're talking about and exactly what was in that bottle, I don't think I'll be able to swallow this unless you tell me exactly."
"It was Jaehyun," Yuta says quietly, "and the bottle… Cupid's Elixir."
Maybe Taeyong does recall something from that course after all, because it comes to him dizzyingly quick.
Cupid's Elixir is one of the most dangerous and most powerful types of love potions, firstly because its effects imitate not attraction, but genuine love. Sometimes it even leaves the physical attraction aspect behind completely. (Don't worry though, we didn't—we've never—) Secondly, Cupid's Elixir's effects last for a lifetime. The victim can go years without seeing the subject of their 'love,' the first person they lay eyes on after consuming the potion, and still hold feelings just as strong for them. Feelings so strong that they feel nothing romantic to anyone else they might've loved instead. Forever.
Taeyong's gaze falls on Yuta's hands. The chipped nail polish, black paint flaking off.
Then Taeyong meets his gaze. Sharp eyes. Hawk eyes.
No, no, no.
"I saw his dad in the news." Yuta looks away. "Recognised him immediately. I've been trying for so long to find his son. I didn't even know his name, but it was like everything about him had been deleted, that he'd just disappeared. I was looking for so long, and when I found him, I—I—I really didn't mean for this to happen, either."
"'This'?"
"Falling for him," Yuta says. "I know it's twisted."
A piercing feeling spreads through Taeyong's chest, and he's surprised to realise it's kinship. An empathy that wasn't there before, when he still thought Yuta and Jaehyun were a nearly-perfect couple in their nearly-perfect fairy tale, and Taeyong was their villain.
He doesn't know why he does this, either. Grabbing Yuta's hand. Pulling him down with him to lie side-by-side on the bed.
Nakamoto Yuta, it seems, makes Taeyong irrational.
Yuta grunts as his back hits the bed. He doesn't pull away.
There's a long silence between them that feels like the decade between their stories before Yuta continues, "But I know what the antidote to Cupid's is, and we can put it into effect immediately."
"Where do I come in?" asks Taeyong. He can't muster any of the vitriol from earlier.
"Where do you come in," Yuta echoes, nearly in disbelief. "You're the key. You're the centre of it all, the only ingredient. What Jaehyun needs is the person he would have loved if not for the potion's emotional blocking to confess their feelings to him, and the potion's effects will shatter. It's a wishy-washy antidote because of how difficult it is to find 'the person they would've loved,' but it's been found through many cases to really be the counteragent." He lowers his gaze. "After I found Jaehyun, I still had to find that person, but after I met you, like I said—to me, it's obvious."
Taeyong is in his own room, Jaehyun sleeping a few walls over. Taeyong is holding hands and lying in bed with Nakamoto Yuta, subject of his jealousy and nothing more. Taeyong is listening to someone tell him that they fully believe Jaehyun—his roommate, his best friend, his everything—would have loved him back, and it's a potion that's stopping him, not his heart.
That Taeyong isn't the villain, but the prince.
"I don't get what you're saying," Taeyong repeats, even if he does.
He can't.
He can't do this.
"Jaehyun needs you," Yuta says quietly, "he deserves to be free—it's been thirteen years of being out of control without even knowing it—"
"I know," Taeyong cries. He can't help the way his voice climbs. Yuta doesn't even wince. "I know, I know, I just can't. What if I'm not the person? What if I tell him and it ruins everything for me and for him and even for you? Can't you just keep going like this, get together with him? Aren't you happy at his side? Can't… can't this just be enough?"
What Taeyong finally discovers is that he was wrong. Jaehyun, too. Yuta's gaze is not sharp or hawk-like, but soft, like his hands and his voice. "I am happy. I am happy. But I'd trade my joy for Jaehyun's any day."
And that's something Taeyong can't argue with.
6. a ruined day
Jaehyun wanders out of his room yawning and looking well-rested, though he blinks hard at the sight of Taeyong and Yuta drinking coffee peacefully together in the kitchen like he thinks he's still dreaming. Then his lips lift into a small, warm smile.
It's such a mundane morning, but it might as well change everything. Taeyong hates the thought of ruining Jaehyun's day, but there is something that has to be returned to him and it cannot wait any longer.
"You're wearing makeup," Jaehyun comments, voice rough with sleep, and Taeyong's startled to realise Jaehyun's talking to him. Jaehyun's beloved Yuta is in the room, and for some reason, he's talking to Taeyong first.
The part of Taeyong that is still struggling to accept Yuta's story and hypothesis weakens.
Could Jaehyun love him?
Is Taeyong the one that he should've, or at least could've, loved, all this time?
"I am," Taeyong says, unable to hide his nerves.
Inexplicably, he finds himself turning to Yuta, searching his gaze for something. Yuta's already staring back at him. Under the table, Taeyong feels Yuta link their hands like Taeyong linked them earlier, and squeeze his hand once before drawing away. It's a little odd but somehow it's enough for Taeyong to take a deep breath as Jaehyun slides into the seat opposite him. Somehow it's enough for Taeyong to find the words. (Ah, that was what he was searching for.)
He's heard them too often, but at least that means they come easy.
"Jaehyun… there's something I need to tell you."