When Zitao first meets Sehun, they’re teenagers and riled up, high on the all-encompassing adrenaline rush that accompanies their wait until debut, because holy , it’s terrifying, but we’re going to be famous. Being two of the youngest trainees and being in the same group, Zitao expects them to become friends. What Zitao doesn’t expect is for the other boy to inject him with a whole different kind of drug, one that makes his face heat up and his palms feel sweaty and his heartbeat uneven.

Zitao sees bits of himself in Sehun, like how he’s a maknae yet tall and gangly and towers over most of the other members, how he’s so young but so committed to doing what he loves, how he not-so subtly revels in the attention of his hyungs.

But then there are countless ways Sehun is not like Zitao: for example, the way his face is often sculpted into a mask of indifference where Zitao’s is always curved up in happiness or tear-stained, his emotions betraying him before he can even determine what they are; how he doesn’t blush whenever Zitao looks at him, how Sehun’s touches are strong and assured where Zitao’s are longing and hesitant.

Zitao is an open book. Sehun is a locked diary, hidden under a pillow. Where Zitao hopes he could write down all of his emotions and be rid of them.

In a way, that’s what he does.

Sehun is a beautiful, blank page for him to scrawl his emotions onto, even if they’re mainly in Mandarin and his Korean is pitiful. Sehun doesn’t mind.

Zitao spends more and more time with Sehun, giving him enough inquiring glances and unrestrained smiles and gentle hands on his waist that it becomes natural for them to gravitate towards each other when they’re promoting together as twelve.

He tells Sehun about how he liked to walk along the beach in his hometown. He tells him how scared he was when he first moved to Korea to pursue his dream. He tells him about how Yifan babies him but he knows the leader sleeps with a Winnie the Pooh plushie. Sehun snickers at that and Zitao ignores the warmth the sound causes in his chest.

He doesn’t tell Sehun that when he looks at him, he sees an ocean of blues and pinks and violets. He doesn’t tell him that when he hugs him, the subtle scent of his shampoo makes him feel slightly light-headed and fuzzy inside.  He doesn’t tell him how every touch they share gives him that tight feeling in his gut that you get when you go a little too high on the swings. Sehun wraps a lanky arm around his waist and Zitao’s grip tightens on the chains around Sehun’s wrist because he’s afraid he’ll fall.

But Zitao realises that he had fallen long ago, and now he was on the ground, knees grazed and sore with no knowledge of how to get back up.

It comes to a point where he’s poured all of his feelings out to Sehun but he still feels them in his chest, he’s scrawled all those words softly into the other boy’s skin but he reckons it’s the words he hasn’t said that would make the prettiest tattoo.

Those words come to him late one night in a hotel room. He’s watching the screen of his laptop but he’s unaware of what’s happening in the movie that’s playing on it. He finds it hard to concentrate on anything when Sehun is so close, his warm body snuggled up against Zitao’s equally long one, his hand resting lightly on Zitao’s chest, his head tucked comfortably into the space between Zitao’s neck and shoulder. Zitao wonders if Sehun knows that he’s just as snugly fit into his heart, too.

So he tells him.

Zitao doesn’t really recall how he says it, all he knows is that his mouth feels dry and Sehun shifts against him and his heart shifts too, beating tenfold under Sehun’s slowly retreating hand.

He doesn’t know if Sehun realises that Zitao is a complete nervous wreck and is ignoring it on purpose, or if he’s really as oblivious as this because when Zitao looks at him, he’s still the same.

“Oh. Okay.”

The same sleepy brown eyes that Zitao has never been able to read properly.

“That’s okay.”

The same messy hair that had been bleached to hell and back but still felt as soft as feathers to Zitao.

“But I don’t feel that way about you.”

The same bitten, pink lips that have only ever been pressed to the top of Zitao’s head in comfort.

“You’re still my best friend, Tao.”

The same Sehun, that doesn’t love him back.

Sehun’s head returns to Zitao’s shoulder. They carry on watching the movie, and Zitao sees the actors’ lips moving but all he hears is “I don’t feel that way about you”. His heart carries on beating in his chest, lonely as a bass drum with no bassline or melody to turn it into a song.

The worst part, Zitao thinks, is that Sehun isn’t inconsiderate. He doesn’t ignore Zitao’s feelings like they’re nothing or avoid his yearning gazes and touches. He doesn’t flinch when Zitao wraps his arms around him on stage. In some ways, Zitao wishes he did.

It happens a week before their Wolf comeback. It’s been days of non-stop preparation, dance practice, photoshoots, interviews, and it’s too much for Zitao. He’s tired and misses home and he doesn’t know whether his joints or his heart hurts more.

It’s late and most of the members have gone out to get food, and Zitao sits, curled up on one of the sofas, his vision blurred and subdued into dull greys and deep blues when a rainbow comes into sight. Zitao wonders if the stylists love Sehun too, see him in the same way he does, because they’ve dyed Sehun’s hair his true colours.

Sehun is a haze of ‘are you okay’s and warm arms and ‘I know it’s hard but it’ll be alright’s and Zitao sniffs into the other’s chest, feeling how fast Sehun’s heart doesn’t beat for him.

“We’re in this together, yeah?” is what he says as he lifts Zitao’s head up to look him in the eyes. He’s about to reply with something about how he wishes they were, wishes he could get back as much love as he gives, when Sehun leans impossibly close and kisses him. Suddenly there’s pink on his lips and violet behind his eyelids and an explosion of reds and oranges in his chest, before it fades to an intense indigo, because he isn’t a rainbow. Sehun is, and when he pulls back with a gaze that’s hesitant but still full of nothing but friendship, it’s clear that Zitao will never light up his life as much as Sehun lights up his.

Of course Sehun is trying to make him feel better. As stoic as some fans think he is, Sehun really does care too much about some things, and Zitao happens to be one of them. Sehun thinks kissing Zitao out of pity will somehow fix him but all it does is break his heart just a little bit more. Because now Zitao knows what he’ll never have: the plush, damp lips pressed softly, ever so softly against his own, the cautious yet firm grip of warm fingers on his jaw.

Zitao stares at Sehun and thinks that maybe Sehun is a rainbow because he’s stolen everyone else’s colours – harvesting them through soft touches, warm gazes and chaste kisses. Zitao doesn’t mind. Sehun deserves all of them.

Zitao dreams in black and white that night.