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Yeonjun was on his fifth rebirth and was beginning to feel like he was really pushing his luck. It wasn’t like he was deliberately dying. It just seemed to be happening to him, repeatedly.
Beomgyu hadn’t even turned up for his latest rebirth, probably because he wanted Yeonjun to think about what he’d done and stop dying in front of him. Yeonjun knew for a fact that Beomgyu took it as a personal insult. Unfortunately not even Beomgyu could heal someone who got caught in a sudden lava flow in the middle of a city street.
“Something really fucking weird is going on,” Soobin said, almost before Yeonjun had managed to wipe the egg goo from his eyes and shake the shell fragments off his antlers. At least Soobin was there, even if it was to ambush him with facts he'd been trying not to think about. “You managed twenty-two years before dying even once, and now you’re on your fifth death since coming back? Something’s up.”
“I mean, I know I've been unlucky…”
“This is beyond bad luck,” Soobin said, and then added the words Yeonjun had been dreading since his third death: “I’ve asked Taehyun for a consult.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Yeonjun hunted around for his clothes. Soobin could have just handed them to him, but no. That would be too easy. At least Beomgu had thrown in his warmest flannels to go with the black t-shirt and ripped jeans. He found underwear in the pile, but no socks. He decided to not keep looking and started getting dressed. “Can’t we ask Mr. Unlucky for another consult? Maybe this time he’ll be able to tell us something.”
“I don’t think Sangyeon will be able to help us. We’ve tried that already, his powers don't work like that and you know it.” Soobin shrugged. “Considering everything, asking Taehyun’s the only idea I’ve got that might actually reveal something new.”
“We didn’t exactly leave it on a good note last time…” Yeonjun tried to find the words to express how it had all gone down. He failed. There wasn’t really a good short hand for ‘I lost my mutant powers, fell into a depression, drove away my still-powered boyfriend by being an asshole, joined a black ops depowered mutant organisation, went on a suicide mission, died, woke up in mutant paradise several years later, had a jealous tantrum when I realised my ex had moved on while I was dead and now we have avoided looking at each other for the past six months’. Soobin had been around for most of that, anyway, and could probably guess the rest. "Or really any of the times since I… came back."
Soobin raised his eyebrows at him. “Yeah, Kai told me everything.”
Yeonjun sighed. “Of course he did.”
“Anyway, Kai said they’ll meet us at HQ, so get a move on.”
Yeonjun liked to consider himself a reasonable man with a solid handle on his feelings these days. Mature and intelligent. Friendly and charming. In control and good at his job.
Most of the time, this was true.
He was exactly who he wanted to be.
But then there was Taehyun.
Taehyun, who was older than Yeonjun now, but called him hyung anyway (unlike Beomgyu who very definitely did not). Taehyun, who had never once lost his powers. Taehyun who had always known exactly who he was and his worth. Taehyun who was sensible and powerful and only needed a glance to see all the ways Yeonjun was flawed and couldn’t possibly measure up.
Taehyun was the future Sorcerer Supreme, possibly the most powerful one there had ever been or would be, while Yeonjun barely even had a mutant power.
Antlers and heightened senses did not even fit in on the same classification table. When Yeonjun had been young, it hadn't mattered. After finding the other boys in the forest and fighting evil with them, getting accepted as he was, he'd been proud of who he was. But now…
Beomgyu smacked him upside the head and frowned. “Stop that.” He'd cut his hair and dyed it purple again. It made him look younger than he was.
“Reading people’s minds without permission is rude,” Yeonjun said primly.
“I wasn’t, you were projecting. Loudly. You always do when it’s Taehyun.”
“I do not.”
Even Soobin, who had zero psychic powers and no way of knowing for sure without borrowing some, looked sceptical. Yeonjun was starting to feel attacked in his own home.
And then a portal opened in their foyer and Taehyun stepped through it, frowning and looking beautiful as always, dressed in black tight jeans, a short red jacket, and outlined in a faint red glow, and Yeonjun just wanted to kiss him. Of course he knew he couldn’t, that he had no right. He had, when he'd first been reborn, back before he'd realised how much time had passed. He'd just reached out and pulled him in for a kiss and for a brief moment things had been perfect.
It hadn't lasted.
Taehyun had stopped him, of course, and explained everything. Taehyun at twenty-four didn't look wildly different from Taehyun at nineteen, they were clearly still the same person, but he'd changed enough that Yeonjun had no problems seeing it when he wasn't overcome with shock and rebirth euphoria.
Even without the others backing him up, Yeonjun had believed what Taehyun was telling him. It was impossible not to.
Taehyun had grown into his features, added some muscles, lost the wide eyed innocence he'd still had left at nineteen, and magnified his terrifying magician aura by about a million. There were so many ways he wasn't Yeonjun’s anymore. But the urge was still there. The urge to just grab Taehyun and kiss him and -- Beomgyu kicked him. “Focus!” he hissed.
“It’s not a curse,” Taehyun said as the glow faded away. “But there’s something… I don’t know. Beomgyu?”
Beomgyu looked surprised. “You think it’s psionic?”
“Maybe. It’s like there’s something there, but I can’t see it.”
“But you see everything,” Kai said. He’d sauntered in after Taehyun, absently brushing feathers off his shoulders, wings out of sight. Yeonjun was still shocked by how tall he’d gotten. At some point he would probably get used to it, but it hadn't happened yet.
Taehyun sighed. “You know that’s not true.”
“You could if you wanted to.”
“No.”
Kai narrowed his eyes and looked ready to start arguing.
Beomgyu slapped a hand on Yeonjun’s forehead -- “ow,” Yeonjun said, pointedly -- and stared into the middle distance while glowing faintly for a while. “Maybe,” he said slowly, uncertainly. “But you know I’m not a very strong psychic. If I can’t heal it, it’s an outside thing. I think we’re gonna have to call the 99z for this one.”
Soobin brightened. “Let me call Yeosang hyung right away,” he said, and gazed into the air with a dopey expression. At least that hadn't changed.
“Just checking,” Yeonjun said, sidling up to Kai who knew everything about Soobin, “but they’re still not..?”
“Nope,” Kai said.
“This is all about Yeosang’s arms?”
Kai looked resigned. “Yep.”
“Do they even want to?”
“You know, I honestly have no idea.”
“They’re on their way and Wooyoung hyung is mad at you,” Soobin informed them cheerfully after a moment.
“Never fear, the Five-in-One are here!” Mingi announced ten minutes later as he stepped through the door with a dramatic cape swish. He was dressed all in white so they were treating this as an official request.
“What?” Beomgyu said. He looked like he was torn between laughing and taking notes. He pulled his phone out of his bag.
“It’s a thing we’re doing now,” San explained. He'd followed right behind Mingi, just stepping out of cape-swish reach. “99z is just so vague as a description, you know? So now we’re the Five-in-One.” He gave a friendly little wave.
Kai brightened and waved back.
Yeosang walked in and nodded hello. He was wearing a very sleeveless white vest, Yeonjun noticed. Soobin seemed to notice that as well.
Finally Wooyoung entered with his arms crossed, Yunho at his heels.
“Darling!” Yeonjun exclaimed, hoping to cut off the rant he could tell was coming his way. “I’m so glad you’re here!”
“Don’t darling me, you liar!”
“I didn’t exactly--”
“You died five times?!”
“I mean, the fifth time was yesterday, so I couldn’t really--”
“FIVE. TIMES:”
“Okay, when you say it like that, it sounds bad, but--”
Wooyoung glowered at him.
“Taehyun hyung says I have a parasite!” Yeonjun blurted out. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Taehyun’s head jerk up. “An evil parasite in my brain making me die all the time. You can fix me, darling, can’t you?”
“If you think appealing to my--”
“Well, obviously, if there’s something wrong, we’ll be able to find it and kill it,” Yunho said soothingly, interrupting the rant Wooyoung was clearly working up to. “Boys?” He held his hands out, and Wooyoung grabbed his left hand, holding his other out towards San who stopped rubbing up against Kai and purring. Mingi grabbed Yunho’s right hand, and Yeosang completed the final part of the circle.
Then they all smashed into Yeonjun’s brain and started rummaging around while Yeonjun frantically ran around and tried to lock all his secrets away in little boxes. He’d always done that, tried his best to hide precious things away when telepaths wandered through his mind and pulled him along with them. Yeonjun hadn’t been close enough to Yunho and Mingi for it to matter, and San and Yeosang at least politely pretended that they couldn’t see Yeonjun’s secrets, but Wooyoung had never seen the point of faking it. He still didn’t. It had given Yeonjun a lot of mental defence training most non-telepaths never got. He still wasn't one, though.
“Why do you even bother?” Wooyoung said, exasperated, and sent a panther-shaped San to smash all of Yeonjun’s secret boxes. “If we’re going to find something hiding in your mind, we need access to everything.”
“Instinct,” Yeonjun said sheepishly.
“Stupidity,” a haughty looking brain-Taehyun said. “You’re always acting before thinking things through,” a young Taehyun that Yeonjun thought was a memory added. “That’s what kills you,” a third one chimed in. Yeonjun flinched. He could usually control figments better, but seeing Taehyun again today must have shaken him more than he thought it had.
“Mingi, come look at this,” Wooyoung said.
“What? Oh. Hm. Interesting.”
“Hyung’s never been very good at looking out for himself,” a Soobin said condescendingly. “Sometimes I think he needs a babysitter to stay alive.”
“I’m an Omega-level healer and I can’t even keep him alive for more than a week!” a Beomgyu flashed in to say. He looked ethereal in a way he certainly never did in real life. “I can bring the dead back to life, but not him. What does that tell you, huh?”
“Can he?” Yunho asked. He’d drifted closer, sword at his side.
Yeosang looked thoughtful, twirling an arrow between his fingers. “No. Beomgyu is very powerful, that’s true, but as far as I know he’s not Omega.”
“Very interesting.”
“Yeonjun hyung is flawed,” a youthful Kai explained kindly. There was a crow perched on his shoulder, claws digging in. Young Taehyun stood next to him, regarding Yeonjun with a detached interest. They were holding hands, fingers tightly laced together.
“Cracked,” Taehyun said decisively. “He came back wrong. We should never have brought him back.”
Yeonjun couldn’t help the whimper of pain that escaped him at those words. It was true, he knew it was. This Kai might not be real, but he was saying what everyone already knew to be true. What Yeonjun had suspected since he woke up and the world had changed, leaving him scrambling to catch up. He'd tried so hard… the old him would have been able to do it.
“No!” Wooyoung protested. He started to reach for Yeonjun, but panther-San jumped him and toppled him over. They faded out of sight, leaving the Astral plane.
“Wooyoung hyung knows it’s true,” one of the Taehyuns said.
“Of course it’s true,” Wooyoung said. No, not Wooyoung. This was a teenager. This was Wooyoung from the past. Even then Wooyoung had known there was nothing special about Yeonjun, nothing worth wasting his time with.
“Mingi?”
“Not yet.”
“I don’t know how much more he can take.” Yunho was lifting his sword, but Yeonjun couldn’t understand why. There was nothing here for him to fight, just ugly truths Yeonjun usually tried to hide from himself.
“Not from yourself,” Taehyun said, sneering. “From everybody else. Pretending you’re strong, pretending like it’s not your own fault everyone leaves you.”
The young Taehyun looked thoughtful. “I don’t think I ever loved you, you just convinced me that I did because I didn’t know any better.”
With a scream Yeonjun shattered, splintering into a thousand little pieces as Yunho swung his sword and Mingi said, triumphantly, “got you!”
“The fuck did you do?” Soobin’s angry voice was the first thing Yeonjun was aware of as he clawed his way back to consciousness.
“We got rid of the nasty little parasite hiding in his mind. Good call there, Taehyun-ssi,” Yunho said. “It had really dug in there.”
“The things is,” Taehyun said slowly. “I never said it was a parasite. I didn’t know it was. I didn’t know it was possible.”
“He knew?”
“No. No, I didn’t. I would have said something sooner,” Yeonjun said, opening his eyes. His self loathing didn't go that far. He didn't think so at least. He had been doing better after he was reborn.
Wooyoung tilted his head to the side. “I don’t think it would let you, but subconsciously you had figured it out, I think. You’re one of the strongest non-psis I know so it’s not that surprising.”
“One of the Taehyuns said you came back wrong --”
“What?” Taehyun blinked.
“--But I don’t think that’s it. I think it was already there when you died the first time. It was small then, but then you died again, and it grew,” Mingi said. He gave Yeonjun an apologetic look. “And it got more and more to feed on, and every time you died, it had more.”
“A couple more times and it would have pulled you under. I’m surprised it hadn’t already to be honest.” Yunho nodded.
Wooyoung looked proud. “That’s my influence. I’m a very powerful psychic, you know.”
The other Five-in-one looked long-suffering.
“Darling, as far as I’m concerned, you’re the most powerful psychic on the planet,” Yeonjun said earnestly.
Wooyoung blinked. “Okay, maybe not the most--”
“No, growing up with you using my brain as a playground for years --”
“--Playground is a bit--”
“--clearly fortified me, a non-psi, enough to unconsciously battle a brain parasite. You’re a marvel,” Yeonjun concluded and beamed. His brain felt scrubbed clean. He felt lighter than he’d felt in years, since long before the first time he died. Maybe since he got depowered.
Wooyoung blinked at him again.
“Okay, I know you’re telling us everything is fine now, but can I just…” Beomgyu snuck up beside Yeonjun, and before Yeonjun could react, he put his palm over Yeonjun’s face, ignoring Yeonjun’s muffled noises of outrage. Yeonjun tried to push his hand off, and then resignedly let it happen. It was just easier.
“Okay, you’re clean. Yay!”
“Glad you approve,” Yeonjun said, muffled.
“Hello,” Yeosang said. Yeonjun had no idea where he’d come from.
“Um,” Beomgyu said. He lowered his hand. “Hi?”
Yeosang grabbed his wrist and started pulling him away. “Let’s go have a coffee and talk about your mutant classification level, shall we?”
“Oh no,” Beomgyu muttered, reluctantly letting himself get towed away. “Look, I have a perfectly reasonable explanation…”
“Oh hell,” Soobin sighed. “I better go with them.”
“Yeosang won’t harm him,” San said, reassuringly. He’d gravitated towards Kai again, the way he always did when Kai was around. His secondary cat mutation always seemed stronger whenever Kai was present even if it was always obvious what he was. The cat ears were not subtle. Kai had that effect on most mutants with animal traits. Yeonjun knew this from experience. He’d always idly wondered how much control of that Kai actually had.
Soobin sighed even deeper. “I’m not worried about Yeosang hyung.” He clapped his palms together, rainbow aura swirling around him, and was gone.
“Hyung.”
Yeonjun turned and there was Taehyun. “Taehyun hyu--”
Taehyun shook his head sharply. “Don’t. I’ll never be your hyung, you know that.”
“Taehyun-ssi,” Yeonjun tried, knowing it was wrong even as he did. Once he'd known Taehyun so well he wouldn't have made these mistakes. Wouldn't trip all over himself in an attempt to show respect.
Taehyun jerked back, grief written all over his face before his expression smoothed out, leaving him pleasantly calm once more. “I’m sorry, I’m… I apologise for being unable to help you. I should have been able to do more. I should have…” He trailed off. He straightened, looking determined. “Now, and back then, I… I should have been able to see past how you made me feel. I regret that I couldn’t. That it took so long --”
Yeonjun shook his head, interrupting him. “No, Taehyun, none of this was your doing. You don’t have to apologise to me.”
Taehyun looked at him, eyes wide and hurt. He looked the way he’d looked as a teenager, back when he’d first manifested his powers, when he’d been Yeonjun’s. A heartbreaking look. “You were in pain, and I did nothing.”
“You didn’t know. There was nothing you could have done. I wouldn’t have let you,” Yeonjun admitted. He’d been so lost back then that all he could do was lash out. Shedding his antlers had been one thing, but losing his normal way of sensing the world had impacted him so strongly it was the only thing he could think of. He couldn’t tell enemies from friends anymore and reacted as though everyone and everything was after him. And he’d been jealous. Helplessly, desperately jealous of everyone who had kept their powers.
Taehyun had only gotten stronger. It was impossible to ignore the hum of magical energies surrounding him now, but it had been hard even back then. It hadn’t been Taehyun’s fault, but being around him had been a constant reminder of what he’d lost.
“I could have stayed. Maybe I could have seen it then, figured out a way to help. I could have done something that wasn’t running away.” Taehyun sounded bitter, blaming himself. It sounded like something he’d told himself often.
“I drove you away,” Yeonjun argued. “The only thing that would have happened if you stayed, would be you being torn apart. You know that’s the truth. I was cruel back then.”
Taehyun was silent for a moment, looking down. Then he looked up again, expression open and vulnerable. “But I loved you. Love stays. Love endures. In sickness and--”
“No. No, darling. I would have hated myself if you stayed. I would have hated you, and that I could not bear.” Yeonjun wanted to pull Taehyun into a hug, wanted to physically reassure him that everything was all right, but he didn’t have the right. He looked towards Kai, who’d politely retreated down towards the bookcases with remaining members of the Five-in-one. Maybe it still felt like a stab in the gut every time Kai casually, lovingly, touched Taehyun, but Kai was good. Taehyun deserved someone good.
“But you hate me now,” Taehyun said, voice so low it was barely more than a whisper. “I abandoned you, and you hate me for it.”
“What?” Yeonjun whipped his head around, shocked.
“It’s the truth, isn’t it? Ever since you came back, you’ve made it abundantly clear that you can’t stand even being in the same room as me, let alone on the same team. The last time we had to work together you didn’t even look at me the entire time. I get it. I do, but, hyung, it hurts. I know there’s nothing I can say that’ll make you love me again, but please, if there’s anything I can do to make you stop hating me, just say it, and I’ll do it.” Taehyun started glowing faintly, floating slightly up in the air. There was so much despair and yearning surrounding him Yeonjun was struck speechless. Had this always been there?
The red glow increased. “Anything you want,” Taehyun said and then yelped as he was tackled to the floor by San, who sat on him until the rest could reach them. “Let me go!”
Kai grabbed Yeonjun’s hands with urgency. “Hyung,” he said, giving Yeonjun a serious look. “Do not, under any circumstances, wish for anything. No wishes, okay? You’re fine with the world exactly as it is. You have no opinions whatsoever on seafood, this is important.”
“What does seafood have to do with anything?”
“Beomgyu hyung once -- you know what, it’s not important right now. Just clear your mind and don’t wish for anything.”
Yeonjun decided to ask questions later and focus on keeping his mind blank for the time being.
“You think another..?”
“No, this is different.”
“Wooyoung, can you..?”
“...Not me. He shields against me too well. Yunho?”
“Maybe. Hold him down and I’ll try.”
“Mingi, do you see it?”
“Yeah. It’s a remnant, a piece, carried over, Taehyun's the biggest target here, vulnerable.”
“His shields are usually good though.”
“Mhmm. Except, Yeonjun.”
“Ah. Yeonjun.”
It was really not easy to keep his mind blank when people kept saying his name in that knowing sort of way, but Yeonjun did his best.
“What the fuck was that?”
Yeonjun had never been so happy to hear Taehyun’s controlled anger before in his life.
“Oh thank god, you’re back.” Kai sighed, relieved, and let go of Yeonjun’s hands.
“It was a piece of the parasite that we pulled out of Yeonjun’s brain. I thought we destroyed it all, but some of it escaped into you because, well…” Yunho trailed off.
“Weak,” Taehyun muttered, deflating. “Weak spots.”
“More or less. And you’re the most powerful non-psi here, it would be drawn to you first anyway.”
Taehyun nodded. “What about Soobin?”
“Yeosang says he’s fine.” Mingi hesitated. “Well, he’s arguing with Beomgyu and being really sarcastic and kind of mean, but apparently that’s normal?”
Yeonjun nodded. “Yeah, they’re into it. It’s a thing. I try not to think about it too much.”
“But they’re both so nice,” Mingi said, shocked.
Yeonjun shrugged. He’d avoided thinking about it since he realised what was going on. Judging by the faces Kai and Taehyun were making, they had been doing the same.
Wooyoung looked extremely amused until Yunho kicked him and sternly told him to stop spying.
“It’s not spying if it’s us,” Wooyoung said, wounded. “They’re the ones trying to seduce Yeosang into bed with them, they know what they’re in for.”
“No,” San said dryly. “No, they do not.”
“Ew,” Kai said quietly.
“No, I mean, it’s kind of hot when you think about it,” Yunho said, clearly thinking about it.
“Ha!” Wooyoung crowed.
“Yunho!” Mingi protested.
“Sorry, babe, but it is.”
“Ugh,” San said, disgusted, finally rolling off of Taehyun, who was lying on the floor, staring blankly up at the ceiling. “You all know it’s Kai I want.”
Kai froze. “What?”
Yeonjun automatically checked Taehyun for his reaction. Taehyun didn’t seem to react at all. Hadn’t he heard..? Didn’t he care that San was loudly hitting on his boyfriend? Yeonjun frowned and turned back to keep an eye on Kai.
“Kai is very nice,” Wooyoung allowed. “Too nice. Sorry, Kai.”
“What,” Kai repeated, laughing nervously. His eyes were very large.
San smiled up at him. “Let’s go talk about it somewhere else, shall we?”
“I… I…”
“San!” Wooyoung exclaimed. He looked shocked.
“Kai,” San said determinedly. He bounced onto his feet and grabbed Kai’s wrist. He gave a little tug.
Kai shook his head and started pulling back. He looked scared enough that Yeonjun was seconds away from jumping in, when his face softened and the fright went away. “Oh,” he said. “I didn’t realise…”
San blushed.
“Okay. Okay, we can talk. Mouth talking, not head talking,” Kai added.
San brightened and tugged at his wrist again. This time Kai followed him and they left through the front door.
Wooyoung stared after them. “But he can’t,” he said. “We don’t want him.” He started to walk off after them. Yunho and Mingi hurried after him.
“San is himself,” Yunho said gently, taking Wooyoung’s arm before he could get out the door. “San does.”
“San is us,” Wooyoung protested. It had been a long time since Yeonjun had heard him sound so young.
Yunho hesitated. “We’re not San.”
“I get it. I know it hurts,” Mingi said. He pulled Wooyoung into an awkward hug that turned more natural once Wooyoung stopped resisting. “It’ll hurt every time, but he won’t leave you. Us. I got used to it, and you will too. You can be jealous all you want but that doesn’t change anything.”
Yunho looked confused.
“I want San to want what I want,” Wooyoung said sullenly. “Always.”
Mingi laughed. “Yeah, well…”
"Thanks for your help," Yeonjun said loudly, before they could further embroil them in their drama. That was another thing that hadn't changed. Not that Yeonjun had ever met a telepath who wasn't loud and public about personal drama, but privately he tended to think that anyone who was led by Hongjoong and Seonghwa just developed a taste for airing everything out in front of as many people as possible. Even Jongho was like that.
"You're welcome, darling," Wooyoung said, losing the pout long enough to smile at him. Then he pointed sternly at him. "But the next time you're dying you better tell me everything about it! Right away!"
Yeonjun crossed his heart and promised. He watched the three of them leave, intensely aware that they were leaving him alone with Taehyun.
"I'm sorry," Taehyun said. He hadn't moved from the floor. "Again."
"You don't have to be. I know that wasn't you."
Taehyun grimaced. “It’s different when you’re left behind,” he said. “You learn to live with grief, and it’s never fine, but it’s what you’ve got. And sometimes… If you wished hard enough, you could break the world, all for one person. And some days, hyung, some days I was closer than you can imagine to doing it.”
"You would never, " Yeonjun said with more confidence than he felt. He didn't actually know what Taehyun was capable of any more. "And anyway, I came back, didn't I? Without you having to do anything."
“Yeah. It shouldn’t have been hard for me, I know, but it was. I had missed you so much and you came back hating me as much as you had when you died, and I couldn’t stay. Not then and not now. I’m so happy you’re alive, and I can’t be here. I’m sorry.” Taehyun slammed his palm against the floor, opening a portal. “Goodbye, hyung.”
Yeonjun yelped and dived after him, tackling him into the floor of Taehyun and Kai’s apartment which was located on the opposite side of the island. “Hyung, don’t run away from me, please. I mean, Taehyun. I mean.” Yeonjun huffed. “Look, I know I’ll always be your hyung, but you’re older than me now, and it makes sense in my head, okay? I’m not trying to create distance between us, and I’ll try to stop if you really hate it. Soobin hates it, Beomgyu only cares when he’s in the mood for it, and frankly I think I could call Kai noona and he wouldn’t notice or care, so that’s why I don’t much with them. I did when I first came back. You weren’t around much, then, so it stuck for you.”
“Oh,” Taehyun said. He stared up at Yeonjun.
“Okay?”
Taehyun nodded slowly. “I think so. I mean, I get it now. I thought… I felt like it was another way for you to make sure I knew the past was the past. And it was just me.”
“Unintentional, I swear.”
“Okay. Can you get off me now, please?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” Yeonjun scrambled off, blushing furiously. “Just. I really, really don’t hate you. I never did. I was angry and messed up and depressed, and fuck knows what else, but I always loved you. Things are really different now, I know. I’m so jealous of Kai it’s embarrassing to even admit it in my head let alone aloud, but that’s the truth. I love Kai. I do, but --”
“Jealous? What? You think me and Kai are together?” Taehyun laughed a little incredulously.
Yeonjun paused, confused. “Well. Aren’t you?”
“No!”
Yeonjun stared at him. “But… You’re always together.”
“Yeah, because we work together and he’s my best friend, and to be honest, I think he keeps me from rewriting reality on a daily basis just by being himself.”
Yeonjun considered this. Kai being all that stood between the world and complete rewrite made sense when he thought about it. Kai had been voted Most Likely To Save The World during their academy days, after all. “Well, now I feel silly.”
“You should,” Taehyun agreed.
They both fell silent, just breathing and trying to understand everything that had happened.
“Can we try again?” Yeonjun asked. He'd wanted to ask for so long, but he hadn't found the right time.
Taehyun looked at him, and he was the boy Yeonjun had known, and the man he didn’t, and all Taehyun. “I’m not who I used to be,” he said finally. “Too much has happened.”
“I know.”
“You might not like who I am now.”
Yeonjun nodded. “I know that too. You might not like who I am. I know we can never be who we were, but I still love you. I never stopped. Can we at least try to be friends?”
“Friends?”
“Got to start somewhere and I might be a shitty boyfriend, but I’m a great friend,” Yeonjun said confidently and smiled when Taehyun laughed.
“Yeah,” he said, fondly. “Yeah, we can start there.”