One day, his mother asked him to bring Mrs Park some leftover homemade soup they had because the poor lady just couldn’t cook anymore. As he walked past the Kim’s house, however, he stopped dead in his tracks when he heard sobs. He backed up a bit and stared at the Kim’s garden to see Kibum sitting by their tree, hugging his legs and burying his head his knees. He felt a pang in his heart at the sight and stood there awkwardly for a few minutes, before actually deciding to get a grip and ask the older boy what was wrong. He walked to him slowly and purposely walked on a few twigs to make noise and let Kibum know about him coming but his sobs were drowning the sound of his steps. When he was only a couple of feet from the young man, he cleared his throat and Kibum looked up. He had never seen him so devastated. His beautiful eyes were swollen and red and his nose was all runny. His hair was just as much of a mess as he was, and Taemin cursed whatever reason had made him cry. Kibum sniffed and let out a humourless chuckle.

“Hey, Taemin-ah.” He said, his voice wavering as he wiped his nose with the end of his sleeve. “What are you doing here ?”

It was so typical of him to act as if everything was perfectly fine, but right now Taemin couldn’t help but feel irritated by it because everything obviously wasn’t fine.

Kibum noticed his frown.

“I’m fine, Taemin-ah.” He said, the corner of his lips curving up into a fake smile. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing. I just-”

Taemin just kept staring at him silently. Kibum’s lips quivered as a new flow of tears came out of his eyes to run down his cheeks, and he let out a sob. He tried to muffle it with his hands and Taemin just stood there awkwardly with a frown on his face, speechless. He had never seen Kibum like that and he had never been very good at comforting people. Well, he actually wasn’t good with words at all. Carefully, he sat down beside the crying young man and patted his shoulder. The older had a small laugh at his gesture and turned to Taemin with a weak smile.

“Thank you.” He said, his voice breaking in the middle.

Taemin still didn’t know what to say, so he did the only thing he could think of. He wrapped his arms around the other’s shoulders and hugged him. Kibum leaned into him, and Taemin felt a little guilty upon feeling happy at the contact when Kibum was so obviously hurt.

“J-Jonghyun b-broke up with me.” He managed to say between sobs. Taemin frowned at that because he knew Jonghyun was Kibum’s boyfriend, and he had always thought they loved each other more than anything (he always felt a bit jealous of Jonghyun, but it wasn’t like Kibum would ever be with him anyway). “H-he s-said he met another g-guy. Someone n-named J-Jinki. I thought he loved me b-but… Oh God, why am I even telling you all of this ?”

He pulled away from Taemin and wiped his tears with his sleeves. They were all wet by now but he didn’t seem to care.

“H-he was my f-first… I mean, my first everything and now…”

There was many things Taemin could have said. He had watched enough movies to know there were some basic sentences he could use to comfort him, things like ‘he didn’t deserve you’, ‘he made a big mistake’, or ‘you’ll find someone else, someone better’, but he doubted they would help.

“Is that soup ?” Kibum asked, his eyes still red and swollen, his eyelashes all wet. Taemin nodded. Even like that, at the saddest he had ever been, Kibum was still beautiful. “Who is it for ?”

Without thinking, he handed the thermos containing the still warm soup to Kibum and the other smiled weakly.

When his mother came home and asked him why Mrs Park hadn’t seen him when he had clearly been supposed to go to her to give her the leftover soup, he lied and told he had drank everything. Unsurprisingly, his mother had grounded him. But it was worth it, if that soup had made Kibum feel even just a tiny bit better.