“Wow Ten, babies really love you!”

“Hehe, you think so?” Ten smiles cheekily, holding Taeyong’s niece in his arms as she falls asleep, “I guess I’m just too charming~”

His sister chuckles, “By the way, you look so familiar. Have we met?”

“I don’t think so?” Ten mutters, finally setting Taeyong’s niece into her crib, “I mean, not to toot my own horn, but I’m pretty popular online and at school.”

“No way!” His sister gets a big — almost cynical — smile on her face, “TNT?”

Ten laughs nervously, thinking of the cringe name now that Doyoung has diagnosed him to think its super lame as well, “Y-Yup…”

“I’ve seen lots of your photos,” His sister remarks, “No wonder you look familiar.”

Ten gets flustered at the thought of that. He wasn’t the type to be embarrassed of his popularity, good looks, or charms, but the thought of Taeyong’s older sister following him, seeing his selfies and ridiculous IG stories made him feel like teachers weren’t lying when they say everything you put online will ruin your future. Either way, he brushes her comment and changes the subject before it could possibly get any worse.

“Taeyong never told me he had an older sister,” Ten blurbs out, “Or a niece, actually.. Heh.”

“Really?” His sister looks a bit agitated, “That ing ! With how much time he spends with my baby and steals her from me, he should at least tell his friends. Tch. How’d you meet Taeyong, anyway?” 

“H-Huh?” Ten chokes out, feeling his cheeke get hot either from anger or love at the reminisce of his early interactions with Taeyong. “W-We go to the same school…”

Way to state the obvious, Ten mentally facepalms himself. 

His sister just stares at him for a moment, with a slight smirk that resembles Taeyong’s in a way, as if she knew something he didn’t. That smirk — she wasn’t purposely hiding it — she wanted Ten to know she knew something he didn’t. His curiosity is getting the best of him, and he almost falls for the gimmick until his phone began to vibrate. 

“S-Sorry, I have to take this.”

“Of course.”

Ten simply smiles before walking out of the room and looking for the bathroom, picking up the phone. He’s peeking through every door to find the bathroom, feeling wrong to invade their privacy but desperate to find seclusion from the overbearing presence of the Lee’s.

“Hello?”

“Yo, Ten! You haven’t told me anything about what happened today. Are you okay?”

He realized he didn’t even check who was calling, sighing in relief to find that it was just Doyoung. Just Doyoung. 

“Why are you breathing so loud on the phone? Jeez, I can feel your hot breath!”

Ten scowls and he knows Doyoung can imagine it. Either way, the younger replies, “I didn’t tell you anything because there isn’t anything to call. But you really saved my right now, so I won’t pick the out of you as I’d like to.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” 

Ten is so desperate to make sure no one can hear him that he doesn’t realize he barged into a room — the desperate, delusioned mind of his hoping and praying that each door it opens will be a bathroom — and locked it. He then lowers his voice and whisper yells to Doyoung, “I really ed up Doyoung!!”

He can hear Doyoung chuckle but feign worry over the phone, “What’s wrong?”

Ten keeps glancing to the door, squatting down and putting his cheek next to the floor to make sure no one is eavesdropping on the other side or passes by as he’s talking. 

“I’m still at Taeyong’s — and I’m stuck with his scary sister!!”

“He has a sister?!” 

“And a niece! Doyoung, I’m going to myself if I stay any longer. But I feel even worse because I had the chance to leave earlier but I ing didn’t. I don’t know why — but I need to leave before Taeyong gets home.”

“What? But you went over there to talk to him. This is your chance, Ten.”

“But I can’t stay… I don’t feel safe,” Ten mutters as he finally moves away from watching the crack under the door in surveillance of any shadows, “Taeyong’s sister knows something that I don’t —“

“Know…” Ten looks around his surroundings, slowly processing what he’s seeing. The room was tidy, too tidy that it seemed like a cutout of an Ikea model room in the magazines. Ten slowly lifted himself up, walking over to the desk in one of the corners of the room, which was neatly organized with textbooks and a desktop computer. He then turned around and saw a large closet mirror, seeing his own self but also the wall behind him. The walls were blank with little decor, completely minimal, but the mirror had several prints taped onto it. He walked over to the closet mirror, hesitating to open it but doing so anyway, instantly recognizing the school uniform hung up to avoid any wrinkles. Ten reaches over to the name tag pinned on the blazer and reads it out loud. 

“Lee Taeyong.”

“HOLY ,” Ten gasps, then hears a muffled voice. He instantly checks the door, but realizes the voice is coming from inside the room, and he can make out the words. 

“ing say something, head!” 

“Oh crap, Doyoung you scared the crap out of me,” Ten sighs in relief.

“You scared the out of ME! I thought his sister ing knocked you out or something. What’s wrong? Why are you suddenly so quiet?”

“U-Uh… I didn’t realize I walked into a random room,” Ten muttered, his unconscious curiosity skimming through Taeyong’s wardrobe and imagining what he’ll look like wearing it outside of school, “A-And, uh, I think I’m in Taeyong’s room —“

“Wreck his !”

“I’d love to,” Ten smirks, “But I think I want to snoop a little longer.”

“Find something embarrassing and send it to me. I’ll blackmail that bastard if he ever wants to pull funny on us again.”

“Us?” Ten scoffs as he squats down to look closer at the bins in the bottom of the closet “So I’m guessing you and Jaehyun are great buddies now.”

Ten hears the shake of Doyoung’s voice when he says, “I was talking about you and me, dip!”

Ten rolls his eyes even though Doyoung can’t see him, his hand pulling out a couple loose sheets of paper in a box, hesitating to look at them. 

“Actually, I don’t feel so good snooping around,” Ten mutters, “It doesn’t feel right...”

“So suddenly you have a high moral compass,” Doyoung scoffs over the phone. 

“I’m hanging up.”

“What? if you do —“ 

Ten clicks to end the call and puts his phone back into his pocket. He sighs, checking the door and realizing he might’ve been absent for too long that the Lee’s might grow suspicious, so he starts getting up. However, just as he does, something falls out of a box he was just looking in. He peers down, his uncanny curiosity getting the best of him again, and he picks it up. 

The envelope is a bit yellowed, crumbled in the edges, letting Ten know that this letter was old, probably forgotten by Taeyong with the condition it’s in, and thinking that, he compromises with himself that peeking inside the envelope wouldn’t be wrong. 

If it’s an envelope, it could be an old, cringed confession letter in primary school. Or a weird photo that Taeyong wants erased off the Earth but the sentimental value of it makes him hold onto it, or its a random birthday card lost in all the other bunch. 

Ten whips out the paper inside, his eyes squinting down at the paper, realizing he never turned off the lights and the sun was disappearing into the buildings and the sky’s hues were purplish with the gorgeous fall orange mixed in. 

And as his eyes adjust, and the contents of what the paper holds becomes clear in his eyes, he can’t help but mutter to himself, 

“What… is this…?”

Their excited bodies were overexhilerated that they got tired quickly without anything more than kissing and the weirdest, shortest “” of all time. Kun realized quickly as his hands slipped under the elastic of Sicheng’s underwear that he has no idea how a ing works, and he certainly didn’t want to leave the worst last impression on Sicheng. Sicheng didn’t expect anything, he just kept kissing him until they collapsed on each other. Sicheng’s arms were around Kun’s waist, their damp chests sticking to each other, in utter silence, as the moonlight shone in Kun’s room and highlighted the small muscles of Kun’s back. Kun felt the embarrassment settle in as to what he did. He got off Sicheng and collapsed beside him, Sicheng turning his back to him once he was off of him, not purposely ignoring him, it was just his comfortable position. Kun knew that. 

He thought doing this woul