Chap 4: Do you like him?
Why am I different?“Well, Minjun said- “
Taecyeon sat up so fast on his bed it left his head reeling.
“What?! What did he say?!” he almost shouted.
Silence.
“Khun?!”
“If you hadn’t interrupted me, I would have told you anyway,” Nickhun replied, rolling his eyes since he knew the guy on the line wouldn’t be able to see it. He had been startled into silence by the sudden question.
“Sorry,” a dry laugh followed by an impatient,“so?”
Nickhun’s a very sharp guy. Right now, he’s starting to get suspicious.
“Well, Minjun said that maybe you are taking on too much in your schedule and it’s taking a toll on you. He had produced two of our albums after all and knows how stressful it can be. Plus, you have your own schedule on top of that. Especially those late night radio DJ-ing. He was against you doing them, you know? He thinks that you’re trying to make up for the time when you have to do your service. Ironic, since we thought HE was the one trying to compensate for HIS leave,” Nickhun ended with a dry chuckle of his own, worrying for both s.
“That’s all?” came the pained reply.
“He wanted to talk to you. But he thought it wouldn’t work since he already did that and yet nothing improved. He noticed your mind weren’t all there during our fan meeting earlier too. So, he asked me to talk to you. He seemed to think that I’d be able to do something. Hah!” he scoffed, "I didn’t think you’d call me first, though. Simply put, he’s just worried about you."
“Yeah?”
Skepticism this time.
“Hey, come on man. What is it? There’s something between the two of you isn’t it? Did you guys fight?”
“Nah, why would you say that? Nothing happened between us.” Taecyeon replied, adding “Sadly…” at the end as if wistful.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe cause you literally jumped out of bed when you heard his name? Or the fact that I’m becoming the messenger boy between you two?” Nickhun shot sarcastically.
“Besides, even the kids can sense something happening,” he continued.
A sigh and more rustling on the other end before Teacyeon replied with a noncommittal “we’re not fighting.”
“Are you not gonna ask what the kids said? See? You lost your wanting to know what Minjun said but you couldn’t care less about the rest,” Nickhun pressed, wanting to hear the truth.
“So you guys have been talking ‘bout me, huh?”
No heat behind the words, so Nickhun knew he wasn’t angry.
“More like a certain worried mother hen who looked a lot like Minjun had been asking the kids if you had confided in them. Junho thought he must’ve done something wrong since you wouldn’t let him come near you and Wooyoung thought you hated him since you were ignoring him. And Chansung, well, he thought something happened in the waiting room the other day when you zoned out. Minjun agreed. I saw the blank look on your face at the time too. So what happened?” he explained at length.
Another sigh, bigger and longer this time, as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders.
“I don’t know how to put this into words…”
“Try me,” he encouraged, wanting to help his friend.
“I feel…like…Minjun treats me…differently… compared to you guys,” Taecyeon started off, finding it very difficult and having to stop a couple of times to find the exact words.
“Ok…” Nickhun replied, waiting for Taecyeon to continue.
But when nothing came, he started to ask,” ummm… How?”
“That’s the thing! I don’t exactly know how?!” Taecyeon whispered harshly, alerting Nickhun of his friend’s exasperation.
Nickhun would have laughed at the absurdity of the situation if he hadn’t sounded so troubled by it.
“Ok… how about some examples? When do you think he treated you differently?” he asked instead, trying to offer a solution.
“Well, like this morning. During the fan meeting. Minjun would not even look at me when I’m talking to him. He either just looked straight ahead or at Junho,” Taecyeon replied, his voice pressing hard on Junho’s name as if the boy frustrated him.
“Ummmm… But shouldn’t Minjun BE looking ahead, since you know, he needs to look at the fans,” Nickhun pointed out, though he was a little worried that voicing his thoughts would push Taecyeon away.
“No, not just then. Even when we were recording Promise, he only looked ahead,” Taecyeon’s now desperate to put his point across.
“You mean when only the two of you were in the recording room? That’s ‘cause he needed to look into the camera, wasn’t it?” Nickhun playing the devil’s advocate again.
“I would understand that too, but no, he was just looking at the computer though there wasn’t anything to really look at. I didn’t realise it at the time since I was too nervous to know what he thought of my song. But now that I really thought about it, he was just fiddling around with the mouse and scrolling through the music score on the computer for no apparent reason!” Taecyeon talked so fast, he said it all in one breath.
“You know how he can’t keep his hands still. He’s just playing with the mouse to keep his hands busy.” Nickhun continued to defend Minjun’s actions calmly, trying to be the voice of reason amidst the raging storm that was Taecyeon’s thoughts.
On the other side, Taecyeon groaned in frustration.
“Ok, then what about how he plays with the kids? Like how Wooyoung talks in aegyo with him or how Junho is always hugging him or how he always has his hands around Chansung’s arm?” he quickly blurted out, beyond caring what his words would indicate.
“You mean… You want to… talk in aegyo with Minjun... and hug him…?” Nickhun said in disbelief.
“No, of course not!” Taecyeon was quick to deny.
“Then?” Realisation dawned,” oh. You want HIM to do aegyo to you and hug you,” Nickhun quickly replied a smile slowly shaping his lips.
“Yes! No- what? Of course- I don’t – I would NEVER-“Taecyeon sputtered while Nickhun tried holding in his laughter, his smile growing bigger.
“He just doesn’t treat me the same, alright?!” Taecyeon finally finished in exasperation.
“Of course not. You don’t treat me the same as the rest either. It is not possible to treat everyone the same. People have different personalities and you treat them accordingly. Like it would be weird for me to do aegyo to you,” Nickhun tried to hedge though he knew the real problem now.
He needed Taecyeon to calm down first in order to make the guy understand.
“Ewww no! Please don’t! Ever. Just thinking about it is giving me goosebumps,” came the reply and for the first time that night, they shared a real laugh.
“But… I saw those silent hand holds you two shared when you needed encouragement,” Taecyeon continued after their laughter had died down.
A moment of silence.
“Yeah. I don’t know, we seem to know when the other needed it and it helps lift our spirits a little,” Nickhun finally replied, a smile apparent in his voice. It was obvious he was fond of the memory.
“Huh. Not with me though...” Taecyeon whispered so softly, Nickhun would’ve missed it if his surrounding wasn’t so quiet.
“Like I said, he treats everyone differently. Not just you, because everyone is different,” Nickhun repeated his earlier thoughts.
“No, that’s not it,” Taecyeon gritted his teeth.
His eyes widened as something finally clicked in his head.
“Yes, that’s it,”he suddenly blurted out.
“What?” Nickhun frowned, not understanding.
“That’s it! He treated me as a colleague but treated you guys as brothers!” Taecyeon almost shouted, excited that he finally figured it out.
Then, “he only thinks of me as a mere colleague…” he repeated again. This time sadness and regret lacing his every word.
“Dude. Don’t get too ahead of yourself,” Nickhun quickly denied, wanting to put a halt to Taecyeon’s ramblings, his heart hurting with the amount of regret he heard in Taecyeon’s voice.
Silence.
“We’ve been together for so many years. We’re practically family. Take his worry for you; he wouldn’t be that worried about you if he thinks of you strictly as a colleague, right?” Nickhun tried again, tripping over his thoughts and words in his haste to comfort his friend.
When he was met with more silence, he started getting worried. Taecyeon’s a stubborn man; when he gets an idea in his head, nothing can change it. Nickhun better act fast before that thought was sealed and cemented in his friend’s mind.
“You know what I think? I think, it’s not about how Minjun treated you. It’s about how you WANT him to treat you. You want him to focus on you. You want him to be closer with you, to have his attention on you like how he has his attention on the kids. You want him to act pampered with you too and you want his hugs and his arms slung around yours too!”
“What the hell?! Who does- What? I don’t- There’s NO WAY-EWWW, NEVER! I ABSOLUTELY HATE- “ Taecyeon kept on sputtering his denial throughout Nickhun’s speculations, up to a point that Nickhun had to shout to overcome him.
Finally, breathless, Nickhun asked the golden question, “Do you like him?”
Sorry if this chap is lacking! It's Monday so I don't have much time to read it through and edit or develop the idea very well >.<
And I love love love reading comments so please say something even if it's just a "Hi" or something. Heheheheh
Also, special thanks to all those who voted up my story!! ( though I don't know what that is actually and what it does xD)
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