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The jazz music at the restaurant is at the perfect volume, complimenting the ambiance set by the dim lights and clinking of pans in the semi open kitchen. It’s soothing, romantic, this little supposed gem of an italian restaurant nestled on a back street behind the campus subway station. Around them, couples are cuddled in their booths, chatting quietly, stealing smiles, and instagramming their tiny portions of overpriced pasta before laughing together.
But the table Beomgyu is seated at is silent.
First dates are not supposed to be this silent.
Across from Beomgyu sits Kang Taehyun, looking even better than usual in a gray sweater with his hair pushed back – a far cry from his usual sweats and t-shirt combo that Beomgyu is used to seeing on campus. The yellow light of the candle on their table makes his eyes look even brighter, and Beomgyu would drown in them if not for the fact that they’ve exchanged all of ten complete sentences since they were seated twenty minutes ago, and he’s avoiding his eyes in shame.
This whole situation is Beomgyu’s fault. He was the one who got so caught up in watching Taehyun lift weights during one of their gym sessions a week ago that he suddenly blurted out go on a date with me – not a request, but a demand – and Taehyun, being the nice guy that he is, had set the barbell down, looked up at him with a mysterious smile and said okay, hyung. Beomgyu then panicked-searched to find a decent local restaurant with enough good reviews for a first date, and that was that.
So now here they are, suffering together in silence over exorbitantly priced pasta because Beomgyu’s brain malfunctions at the sight of glistening biceps and, apparently, gray sweaters. Fantastic. Maybe he and his wallet deserve to suffer for not thinking this through.
Truthfully, Beomgyu is not a fancy restaurant guy. Beer over grilled meat with laughter, he can do. But they’ve done that before as friends multiple times and this is supposed to be a date not another bro-ey hangout. Also, somewhere in the back of his mind he’d hoped Taehyun would maybe kiss him tonight, and if that happened, he didn’t want his hair to smell like meat. But he’s pretty sure a kiss is out of the question given his current inability to string words together.
“How’s the pasta?” Taehyun, bless his heart, attempts to make conversation seeing as how Beomgyu has been rendered temporarily incapacitated.
“It’s good.” Too eager to reply, Beomgyu forgets all the manners he’s learned about not talking with his mouth full, his words coming out in a jumble. “I see why this place had so many great reviews.”
Taehyun lets out a light laugh – whether it’s at the fact that Beomgyu nearly choked on spaghetti in the process of replying or genuine pleasure that Beomgyu is enjoying his food is irrelevant because Taehyun is still smiling at him, and that feels nice. Beomgyu knows his eyes are doing that stupid dreamy thing they sometimes do when he stares at smiling Taehyun too long.
Instead of continuing making conversation like any normal date would, Beomgyu decides to intensely focus on twirling his pasta perfectly. If he can’t provide entertaining banter, the least he can do is look like he knows what he’s doing with a spoon and fork and not fling sauce all over the pristine table cloth. He’s a classy guy with good table manners most of the time, and Taehyun should walk away from this date knowing at least that much.
The thing is, he so badly wants to talk to Taehyun. He wants to be on a date with Taehyun. Yet, he can’t seem to come up with anything suitable for conversation and instead is preoccupied with the thought that has plagued him for a week: he crossed a line by getting a crush and now their entire friend group will fall apart because Kang Taehyun is kind of perfect and Beomgyu is a weak man. The restaurant makes things so official and conventional, two things Beomgyu is not the best at dealing with.
No, he can do this.
It’s not like they haven’t spoken in the semester they’ve been acquainted. Prior to the gym incident, he had no problem making small talk with Taehyun about school, about Soobin’s secret love of girl group dances, and he even managed to convince Taehyun to work out together twice a week since they both hit the gym regularly.
But all that apparently changes when he’s on a date with Taehyun.
He needs to come up with something quick, otherwise Taehyun won’t just let him down easy, he’ll excommunicate him altogether for being the worst date in the history of awkward university dates.
Then it hits him: animals. Everyone likes animals, and Taehyun is studying to be a vet; so it’s a perfect topic of conversation.
“How’s…” Beomgyu begins, waiting until Taehyun looks up hopefully to continue. He really is quite cute, especially when he looks so intently at Beomgyu, and Beomgyu almost loses his train of thought. “...Hobak?”
Taehyun actually cringes. “You’re asking me about my cat?”
“I guess, yeah.” Beomgyu gives a sheepish smile.
Taehyun takes a moment to blink away his confusion – disappointment? – before answering.
“My parents haven’t mentioned anything about him recently. But I’ll visit home next weekend. I can send you pictures?”
Beomgyu nods with a tad too much enthusiasm. “That would be nice.”
That would be nice? What Beomgyu really wants are pictures of Taehyun smiling, maybe in a sleeveless shirt, or selfies of them together cuddled up all cute that he can send to Yeonjun to rub it in his face that Beomgyu finally made good on his promise to ask Taehyun out after months of pining. But, alas. Beomgyu’s getting pictures of a tabby cat and the memory of Taehyun’s disappointed smile instead.
The real tragedy here is that – despite this pitiful show he’s putting on – Beomgyu does actually know how to flirt. But, he knows how to flirt with strangers he wants to hook up with or get a number from. Taehyun is definitely not a stranger, Beomgyu is too far down the rabbit hole of feelings for him to be just a hookup, and Beomgyu already has his phone number. It’s not like he can drop his voice, look up through his lashes and ask “how are your midterms going?” with a suggestive raise of his eyebrow. Taehyun would think he’d lost his mind (if he doesn’t think that already).
So, he’s left grasping at conversational straws. And Taehyun – for his part – seems all too comfortable sitting in awkward silence. He’s eating his food, only looking up occasionally to meet eyes with Beomgyu and give a small smile. If Beomgyu didn’t know better, he would think Taehyun is taking some sort of sadistic satisfaction in watching him squirm. There’s a glint he’s caught in Taehyun’s eyes every few glances that would indicate Taehyun is amused with the mess of a date Beomgyu is being.
And Beomgyu can’t really blame him for that. At least he’s enjoying something about this evening. Beomgyu had planned on it being his natural charms and quick wit, but beggars can’t be choosers.
The minutes drag on to the point of near physical pain. His butt is going numb in his seat, and Beomgyu may soon implode. Or say something stupid. He only has a few noodles left in his bowl, and he’s reached the point of contemplating asking Taehyun to do a magic trick just to give his date something to do with his hands. Would the restaurant frown upon parlor tricks?
“Let’s get out of here.” Taehyun abruptly disrupts his spiraling train of thoughts. In the next second, he’s folding his napkin and placing it on the table.
Though Beomgyu knows this means the date has ended in failure, he can’t help but mimic the movement with a relieved, “Yes, please.”
After splitting the bill, the pair find themselves out on the street. Away from the confines of proprietary and table manners, Beomgyu feels like he can finally breathe for the first time all evening. Spring weather means evenings are warmer these days, and plenty of university students are milling about the neighborhood, making their way to their second and third stops of the evening.
Unfortunately, Beomgyu knows that he won’t be so lucky. He’s made a mess of a date he very much wanted – too much expensive pasta and Kang Taehyun in a sweater to allow him to focus – and he’s probably lost his shot at making the successful transition from friends to something more with Taehyun.
Was it worth it? Beomgyu still isn’t sure as he trails behind Taehyun on the road back to campus. He’d thought of this date for months, and now he realizes it might have been better to pine in silence. At least then Taehyun wouldn’t look at him with a mix of pity and amusement, and they could continue with their group PS5 nights and all-you-can-eat samgyupsal outings as friends.
“Hyung.” Taehyun comes to an abrupt stop outside the GS25.
This is the part where Taehyun lets him down easy. But it won’t be of any use because their friendship is forever ruined – Taehyun probably won’t be able to look at him without cringing from this point forward – and it’s all Beomgyu’s fault.
“I’m going to run into the convenience store for a minute. Wait here, okay?”
Oh. That wasn’t what Beomgyu expected. Maybe Taehyun needs something before they return to their dorms and Beomgyu shares sad pinterest memes on Twitter about lost love and all that bullshit to comfort himself.
“Okay.”
Taehyun emerges minutes later with a black bag and a confident smile on his face. Beomgyu can’t help but feel a little sad at the sight. It’s okay though, he had his date. He gave it a go, and it didn’t work. At least Taehyun is smiling as they walk through the campus gate.
Only, Taehyun turns left instead of right.
“This isn’t the way to the dorms?”
The campus is already on a mountainside, but the turn after the quad means they’re walking towards the mountain trail and not the campus dormitories.
“It’s only eight pm. We aren’t going to the dorms yet.” Taehyun comments over his shoulder with another reassuring smile. “Unless you’re too full to do a little hiking?”
“No!” Beomgyu’s sudden enthusiasm at just the prospect of spending more time with Taehyun startles both of them. What is shame? “No, definitely not too full.”
“Alright then. Let’s go?”
Following hot guys up a mountainside in semi-darkness is not something Beomgyu can say he regularly does. But this is Kang Taehyun he’s talking about, and it’s so easy to fall in line behind him on the narrow trail once the main campus road ends.
As he makes his way up the path, he contemplates the evening he’s just had and tries to make sense of what the hell Taehyun is up to.
It’s not like Beomgyu just woke up one day and thought hey, let’s ruin our budding friendship forever. No, liking Taehyun has been a slow building flame inside of him from the moment Soobin brought him and Hyuka into the friend group at the beginning of the semester. Once Beomgyu realized that Taehyun and Hyuka were in fact not together and just like to spontaneously wrestle each other on the floor, the feelings started to form before he could stop them. With each sweet smile, witty joke at the expense of their hyungs, and playful smack of his shoulder, Taehyun began to occupy an alarming amount of Beomgyu’s attention.
When he saw Taehyun lift heavy boxes in a sleeveless shirt when they all helped Soobin move, he knew he was a goner. But it was Taehyun going on a passionate spiel about how intelligent parrots are after hearing Beomgyu’s family raised one that drove the final nail into his (very smitten) coffin.
Beomgyu is simply a victim of his love for Toto, his heart, and his dick. The perfect trifecta of embarrassment. Even more tragically, his brain somehow missed the train to Successfully Wooing Kang Taehyun Land, so he’s left with all the feels and no proper way to express them.
And it’s not like he acted without signs. He thought he saw them in the way Taehyun would sometimes intently focus on him to the point of forgoing blinking, or the way Taehyun’s arm naturally wrapped around his shoulders when they were laughing at Yeonjun’s tragic attempts to survive horror games.
And now, maybe there’s still a glimmer of hope in the way Taehyun so easily grabs his hand when they reach the rockier portion of the trail. Or maybe Taehyun is just too nice, too touchy, with everyone he knows. Beomgyu doesn’t want to allow himself to hope.
Eventually they reach the top of the trail. Taehyun leads them to a pagoda in the clearing and sets the convenience store bag down on the edge of the bench. From here, Beomgyu can see most of the city around them. The night lights flicker despite the light pollution, and he so badly wishes he could see the stars above Seoul. He can’t help but look around in awe at the campus and city below them.
“Whoa, I didn’t even know this was up here.” Beomgyu comments as he sits himself next to Taehyun.
“I think most students don’t.”
Something about the quiet, or the way Taehyun so easily reclines on the bench, has Beomgyu feeling infinitely more comfortable than he was in the restaurant only fifteen minutes ago. This is the way he’s familiar being with Taehyun, it’s natural, even if it reeks of friendship and pity.
“How’d you find it?” Beomgyu asks as he accepts the beer Taehyun passes him.
“Sometimes I do my runs on the mountain.” The fizzle of the beer can opening almost echoes in the silent pagoda. “Sunrise is pretty here, too.”
“I bet.” There’s nearly a 360 view of the city below them, so there’s no reason for Beomgyu to doubt the scenery is equally enjoyable in the daylight.
“We should watch it sometime.” Taehyun suggests as he opens the pepper chips with a quiet pop and offers Beomgyu the bag.
“Do I have to run?”
Taehyun laughs and shakes his head. “We can walk.”
Beomgyu doesn’t know why that single sentence brings about such a sense of relief. Maybe it’s because Taehyun isn’t planning to write him off forever. Or maybe it’s the fact that, however placating the promise may be, he will get to spend time with Taehyun again.
They sit in silence for a few moments, but it’s different this time. There’s nothing formal about this: just two guys, on a mountain, sipping beer and taking in the night view. The pressure of the date dissipates as Beomgyu lets himself fall into the peace of the moment he’s in.
“This is much better than the restaurant,” Taehyun finally comments, echoing Beomgyu’s thoughts. They’re nearly shoulder to shoulder now, but Beomgyu isn’t the least bit uncomfortable. It’s nice having Taehyun close like this, however fleeting or bro-ey it may be.
“Yeah.” That’s an understatement.
Taehyun scoots a bit closer, his hand wrapping around Beomgyu’s waist. It’s not unfamiliar, but still enough to make him jump in place. Taehyun’s always been touchy, and this shouldn’t be anything new. Yet it is. Because they’re alone on a mountaintop and Beomgyu had fantasized about this for months, though not quite under these circumstances. Not after spending a good forty minutes making a fool of himself on a date he demanded.
“Is that how you usually do first dates?” Taehyun asks, a playful lilt to his question.
So they’re really going to do this: have a date postmortum before they’ve even officially bid each other goodnight. Beomgyu turns to Taehyun, his shame of the past hour probably all too obvious on his face.
“Huh?” He plays dumb anyway.
“Pasta and silence?” Taehyun elaborates with a light laugh. He’s always so forward, which Beomgyu usually appreciates. Except when he’s being called out on a peaceful mountainside.
“Oh god. No. I hope not at least.” Beomgyu wishes the ground would swallow him whole. But Taehyun’s gentle hand along his back provides some reassurance as he looks up from where he’s buried his face in his hands. “Was it that bad?”
“It was… an experience. I’ve never been on a date where the person I’m with spends more time looking at their food than at me.” Taehyun laughs, nudging Beomgyu’s shoulder.
“It’s… just that...” Beomgyu runs his hands over his face one final time. “You look really good tonight. The sweater… It's distracting.”
“Thank you.” Taehyun has a shit eating grin on his face. “You look good too, hyung.”
“Now you’re just trying to make me feel better.” Taehyun is nice. Too nice, sometimes.
“I’m not. I try not to say things I don’t mean.” Taehyun takes another sip of his beer. “But how do you usually do it? A first date, I mean.”
Beomgyu has to think for a moment. In his limited dating experience, he can’t say he has a foolproof first date formula. So he settles on:
“It depends.”
“On?”
“I don’t know. I guess on how much I like the person?” Beomgyu shrugs. All he really knows is that tonight has been a first; he’s never been this tongue tied. Usually, he’s the one talking his date’s ear off about anything and everything. “If it’s just someone I think is hot, it’s easy enough to chat them up, go out for drinks, flirt without expectations...”
“But if you want more than just flirting?” Taehyun presses further.
“Honestly, if I really like someone…” Beomgyu realizes he’s talking about only Taehyun at this point. No one else has so quickly put him on edge. “I think I just sort of lose my mind.”
“Cute.”
Beomgyu has to bite his lip to hold back his smile. It’s too easy to be charmed by compliments. Taehyun probably still thinks he’s a mess, even if he’s a cute mess.
“What about you? What’s your first date move?” Beomgyu pushes back, anxious to pull the attention away from his disastrous attempt at a first date.
“I don’t think I have a move.” Taehyun replies without hesitation. He turns to look at Beomgyu fully, properly. And damn if that doesn’t do things to Beomgyu’s mental capacity. “I just want to get to know someone better.”
The response feels too vague to not ask more, if only for Beomgyu’s own sanity. Maybe he can learn something. At the very least, he can have Taehyun focusing on him a bit longer.
“But what if you already know them a bit?”
“Then, shouldn’t it just be comfortable? I can take them somewhere quiet, and we can just hang out.” Beomgyu realizes all too late that that’s exactly what they’re doing at this very moment. Taehyun moves even closer, their noses only centimeters apart.
Oh god. Taehyun is making a move, and it’s all the more apparent when his voice drops to a whisper.
“It doesn’t have to be impressive, I don’t think. What matters is spending time with someone.”
“You’re really close,” Beomgyu observes. He can almost make out the definition of Taehyun’s eyelashes, the way Taehyun is only looking at him.
Taehyun has the nerve to laugh. They’re too close for Beomgyu not to feel it against his lips, making him want more.
“Kind of have to be for what I want to do next.”
Beomgyu may be an idiot sometimes, but he’s smart enough to know that there are very few things Taehyun would want to do this close to his face. Which means….
“Hyung, can I kiss you?”
Words once again fail him, but he does manage a nod before Taehyun closes the distance between them.
The kiss is initially just a peck: Taehyun teasingly pressing his lips against Beomgyu’s and pulling away with a satisfied smile. It’s chaste, too chaste after all the thoughts of kissing Taehyun that Beomgyu has had for months at this point. He only allows Taehyun a breath before wrapping his hand around the back of Taehyun’s neck to gently pull him back in again.
It’s nothing heavy, a simple play of lips on lips as they adjust the angle to kiss deeper. Taehyun’s lips feel nice, more than nice, after an evening of insecurity. There's a reassurance in the way Taehyun kisses back, meets Beomgyu brush for brush, that lifts the weight in Beomgyu’s stomach that has been present all evening. More than just this evening, if Beomgyu really thinks about it.
He’s still somewhat in disbelief as he pulls away, his fingers playing with the hairs at the base of Taehyun’s neck because he isn’t ready to stop just yet. Taehyun kissed him – brought him to a mountaintop and kissed him – and that’s a whole lot to process.
“Friends don’t kiss friends like that,” Beomgyu finally comments, his breath heavy.
Taehyun’s eyes move from Beomgyu’s lips and back to his eyes. “Some do.”
“Oh.” Beomgyu doesn’t hide his disappointment.
Taehyun delivers a quick peck and a pinch to Beomgyu’s side. “But I’m not one of them.”
Beomgyu glares and returns the pinch to Taehyun’s side, earning him a light squeak.
“So this wasn’t a pity date.” Beomgyu says more to himself than Taehyun, still processing the fact that he completely botched the evening and still somehow ended up with the kiss he wanted. Sometimes, the universe is kind to Beomgyu.
“A pity date?” Taehyun echoes, his eyebrows scrunched in confusion.
“You know…I kind of put you on the spot and you didn’t want to reject me, so you agreed to go on a date and then would politely let me down. That kind of thing.”
“I don’t agree to go out with people I’m not interested in. Even if they take me to pretentious Italian restaurants and ask me questions about my cat.”
“You’re interested in me?” It should be obvious, given the fact that they just kissed. Taehyun’s hand that is now resting on his thigh should also be a pretty clear indication. But Beomgyu’s brain is all sorts of jumbled and he likes reassurance, especially after being on edge all week.
“Hyung, I’ve let you follow me to the gym twice a week for the past month. I don’t even let Hyuka do that. And I even bought this sweater to impress you.” Taehyun smirks. “Though maybe that worked a little too well. I’ll have to keep in mind that sweaters have such an effect on you for future dates…”
Beomgyu bites his lip. “There’s going to be a second date?”
”Definitely a second date. But no stuffy Italian restaurants, please. I’m shit at twirling pasta.”
“That’s fair.” Beomgyu can’t help but laugh. He feels light, maybe a little giddy, and he knows he doesn’t want the night to end. Even if it means more of Taehyun’s teasing. “I can’t afford it, anyway.”
Taehyun laughs along and reaches to tuck Beomgyu’s hair behind his ear. He’s never done that before. Beomgyu could get used to this.
“So now that that’s sorted… Do you think we could do more of that not-friendly kissing?”
It’s Beomgyu who leans in first this time.