Kevin and the rest of U-KISS got back from dinner, full and content.

“I’m going to brush my teeth and go straight to bed,” Dongho said, dragging his feet down the hall towards the bathroom.

“I’m going to the gym,” Hoon said, trailing after Dongho to change into proper workout clothes.

“I’ll go with Hoon,” Kiseop agreed, following Hoon since the two of them were sharing a room.

“I might as well go with them,” Soohyun declared while stretching his arms above his head. “I ate so much~!” AJ followed Soohyun – his exhaustion was unspoken, judging by the way his shoulders slumped and his head hung, as well as how he dragged his feet even slower than Dongho.

Kevin shrugged and felt like talking to Eli – he wanted to see if his best friend was feeling any better. He approached the room he was sharing with Eli and did a double-take when he heard laughter coming from inside.

‘What the…’ he thought as he knocked twice and then pushed the door open.

“Ah, Kevin!” Kevin looked down at Eli, who was sitting on the floor next to the bed with his laptop on the bed and open in front of him. Eli was beaming up and him and scooted over, patting the floor next to him. “Come sit down, I want you to meet someone!” Kevin hesitantly walked over and looked at the computer screen as he sat down.

Although the image was fuzzy and lagging as the person in front of the opposite camera shifted, he could tell that it was a girl. Kevin felt a churning in his stomach when he acknowledged that she was really cute – was she Eli’s ‘secret girlfriend’? Eli had never told him that he was in a secret relationship, but Eli wasn’t the type of guy to talk about that stuff.

“Kevin -” Eli spoke up, snapping Kevin out of his momentary reverie, “this is Katherine, Katherine Takeda Lee; she’s one of my best friends from back home!”

“Call me Kate!” She said, her voice muffled by the computer’s microphone.

“And Kate already knows you!” Eli joked.

“Shut up, Eli!” She laughed.

“What do you mean?” Kevin asked softly, looking between Eli and the computer screen.

“I’m a KissMe,” Kate explained simply. “I would say that I always have been, but I can’t stand anything prior to Man Man Ha Ni. Sorry.”

“You don’t sound sorry,” Kevin pointed out with a small frown.

“That’s just how Kate is,” Eli told Kevin.

“Honestly, though -” Kevin redirected his attention to the computer, “I really don’t mean to offend.” Kevin couldn’t help but smile when he picked up on the honesty in her words.

“It’s fine,” Kevin said, waving his hand in the air absent-mindedly. “So, how long have you and Eli known each other?” He asked.

“We met in Tae Kwon Do when we were in middle school,” Kate told him. “He told me that girls can’t fight –”

“She kicked my ,” Eli stated. “Of course, she’d been taking it for about… how much longer were you in Tae Kwon Do that I was?” Eli frowned, sitting up straight.

“About… seven months? Maybe eight?” She shrugged. “Either way, I made you eat your words.”

“The teacher ed you out for it,” Eli reminded her.

“It was worth it!” Kate declared proudly, her grin barely visible due to the poor lighting in her room and the quality of her webcam. “I regret nothing.” Eli scoffed and shook his head.

“In case you haven’t gathered, Kate is quite the character,” Eli said, smiling at Kevin while gesturing at his computer.

“I can see the two of you are very close,” Kevin said, inwardly wincing when a hint of bitterness seeped into his words.

“My older brother died when I was eleven,” Kate said immediately; Kevin tensed up, wondering why she would tell him something so personal so fast. “My parents signed me up for Tae Kwon Do because I didn’t have an older brother to protect me anymore. A few months later, Eli showed up – after I beat some sense into him, he started to treat me differently. He was nicer, he messed around with me, we grew close, made inside jokes, started hanging out outside of Tae Kwon Do, spending hours just chilling in his dad’s restaurant. He started to remind me of my older brother – in less than a year, I started to consider him my older brother.”

“It’s true,” Eli said, grabbing Kevin’s attention. “People were always telling us, ‘you two are going to fall in love someday! This is just the beginning!’” Kevin chuckled when Eli adopted an ‘old lady voice’ to imitate the words of the people they knew growing up. “We never did. We just… had the kind of non-biological sibling bond. I’ve never been attracted to her, she’s never been attracted to me -”

“Also, I’m not Eli’s type, and he’s not mine!” Kate cut him off.

“Why’s that?” Kevin asked, looking between Eli and the computer.

“I have no figure,” Kate declared, standing up and tugging on the shirt she was wearing as she turned around to emphasize her relatively-small chest, thin waist, and tiny . “And even if he made an exception for the s-line that he’s oh-so-attracted to -” she paused speaking as she sat down, “-he likes to feel like a manly-man – he wants someone who he can protect and take care of, and I’m all about being independent and taking care of myself,” she said, jabbing her webcam as if she were trying to poke Eli in some way.

“And Kate likes those guys who are extremely rare-” Eli sighed and stared speaking in a deadpan tone, “she wants a guy who respects her for who she is and her desire to be independent and her own person, and who understands her ‘intellectual needs’, but who is also able to fulfill her emotional and physical needs -”

“I’m a cuddler,” Kate said, cutting Eli off again with a hint of smugness and pride in her voice.

“And you can’t do that?” Kevin asked, frowning at Eli.

“I don’t meet her ‘intellectual standards’,” Eli said, using air quotations with his fingers.

“I like a guy who I can talk to about literature, plays, art, even science! I just want a guy who is a never-ending source of interesting conversation. Eli is more the quiet type and doesn’t like talking – especially my kind of talking!” Kate joked. “And this isn’t some cliché fanfiction in which he finds himself attracted to me, despite me deviating from either of his ideal types – legit, we have never viewed each other as more than siblings.”

“We tried kissing once, just to see if everyone was right,” Eli admitted, shifting into a different sitting position. “And it just felt really awkward and weird,” Eli shuddered at the memory.

“And it is on that note that I must leave you – it’s almost twelve here, and I have a class at eight a.m.,” she informed the two boys. “Kevin, it was great to officially meet you!” She declared, waving enthusiastically at her webcam.

“You too,” Kevin said, waving at the computer screen.

“Eli, remember to think carefully about that thing we talked about,” Kate said. Kevin frowned in confusion – what did they talk about?

“I will, Kate, I will!” Eli laughed. “Have a good night!”

“You too!” She said as she reached for her webcam; the next moment, the image went black. There was an awkward silence between the two of them for a moment, until Eli cleared his throat nervously and smiled sheepishly at Kevin while reaching up to turn off his laptop.

“She seems… nice,” Kevin ventured to say.

“She’s better to know in-person,” Eli told him with a smile as he proceeded to pack up his laptop. After a moment, Kevin’s curiosity got the better of him.

“What was she talking about when she told you to think about the thing the two of you talked about?” Kevin asked, trying to sound innocent. Eli tensed up and averted his eyes as he zipped up the bag his computer was in.

“I’ll… I’ll tell you later,” he said reluctantly. “We don’t know the next time we’ll be able to go to bed this early, and I’m sure you’re tired -”

“I’d rather stay up for a little while and talk to you,” Kevin objected as he got up from the floor and sat down on the bed, smiling at Eli. An unreadable look flashed through Eli’s eyes for a moment before he smiled and sat down next to Kevin, leaning against the wall.

“What do you want to talk about?” Eli asked, smiling at Kevin.

“You don’t talk much about home,” Kevin pointed out. “Honestly, I’d like to hear some stories about your growing up in D.C.,” he admitted.

“Wanna hear a funny story about the first time my dad put me to work in his restaurant?” Eli asked, his eyes lighting up. Kevin beamed and nodded, turning a little bit so that he could face Eli and look at him with bright, expectant eyes.

“Okay, so I was only fourteen at the time…”

-

By the time Eli finished his story, hardly fifteen minutes later, he felt something falling against his shoulder. He looked at it and smiled tenderly at the sight of Kevin’s head, resting peacefully on his shoulder. Eli reached up and rested his hand gently on Kevin’s other shoulder, getting ready to nudge him awake, but he stopped.

He hesitated and then slowly lowered his hand back to his lap, just staring at Kevin’s sleeping face. It was a repeat of the night he woke up, sat up, and could only stare at Kevin’s sleeping face, glowing in the moonlight. Eli felt compelled to wrap his arms around Kevin’s waist and pull him into his lap as he laid down, resting Kevin on his chest.

The younger boy was very light and only made a soft mumbling noise as Eli laid down with his arms wrapped tightly around him. Eli found himself unwilling to just lay Kevin down on his bed and go to sleep on the mat on the floor – he just wanted to be close to Kevin, just wanted to hold him.

‘Even if it’s just for tonight,’ Eli thought as his eyelids grew heavy, just watching Kevin’s peaceful face. His last thought before sleep consumed him was, ‘Kate’s right.’