He was there again. Same seat, same hunched shoulders and head against the glass as last week. It must have been a bad night because his shoes are tucked up against his side instead of on his feet. Sehun sees this guy every Sunday morning. They take their walk of shame from the same campus to the same train station like clockwork.

 

Sehun feels a small twinge of pride that his shoes at least are on his feet. Even if he’s pretty sure that the shirt he’s wearing, while his own, isn’t from last night. Sehun lets his head drop against the glass and groans softly. Going back for seconds in a month is just sad.

 

Sehun’s Sunday Morning Boy looks over at him and smiles tentatively. Sehun sits up a little straighter. Sunday Morning Boy never initiates contact. Usually they’re both too hungover to even breathe, let alone look at each other longer than it takes to wonder if they look that wrecked. He has enormous bags under his eyes and his skin looks a little washed out, but if he drank even half as much as Sehun did last night, he deserves his gross. Sehun tips his head. Rock your gross, S.M.B.

 

“I’m not gross,” Sunday Morning Boy says, eyes wide and a bit glossy. “I moisturize and everything every day.” He seems to crumble in on himself. Oh . “I’ve just had a rough few weeks.”

 

Sehun cringes. Yep, he’s definitely crying over there. And it’s Sehun’s fault because apparently he can’t control his own half drunk mouth. He scoots to the edge of his seat and peers into S.M.B.’s aisle.

 

“Don’t cry,” he mumbles lamely. “I’m still kind of drunk and an . Don’t cry, S.M.B.”

 

“My name is Tao!” he howls, fists jammed into his eyes. Ew, he has snot running down his philtrum. Sehun cringes back, digging frantically for tissues.

 

“Tao! Great, your name is Tao! That’s fantastic. Oh, my god, please stop wailing, I’ll buy you a freaking coffee, I swear,” Sehun gushes in one breath. Tao takes the tissues delicately, with deliberate care, sniffing pathetically.

 

“You swear huh?” he says a moment later. He looks back up and that teeny smile is back in place. Sehun swallows and drop his head back against the seat, biting his lip.

 

He nods slowly and nearly jumps out of his skin when a bundle that turns out to be combat boots gets dumped in his lap. Tao settles into Sehun’s usual seat like he belongs there, pressed right up against his side, and proceeds to talk his ear off all the way to the nearest Starbucks. Sehun doesn’t mind half as much as he pretends he does.

 

+++

 

The Sunday morning meetups go on like usual only now, instead of avoiding eye contact and pretending the other one doesn’t exist, Tao and Sehun cram into a seat together and swap stories about the night before. Tao, who despite his prissiness and constant need to be pampered is a martial arts master, usually has the best ones.

 

“I swear if he called me princess one more time, I was going to knock his teeth out. I swear to God.” Tao elbows Sehun affectionately, nodding at the hickey standing out bright red on his neck. “Looks like someone got a little greedy.”

 

Sehun covers it with his hand and whines. “I told him no marks! I’ve ed him like six times and he does it every single one of them. This is why Byun Baekhyun is not boyfriend material. As I keep telling him.”

 

He looks over, waiting for the laugh, and sees Tao staring at him with dawning horror. He sits up slowly and reaches out a hand carefully. Tao chokes on his spit and suddenly he’s howling with laughter, all in Sehun’s personal space and grabbing his shoulders.

 

“You’ve ed him too!” he wheezes finally, after Sehun threatens to call the emergency services. “Oh my ing God how many times have we been each other’s sloppy seconds this month?” He trails off into the occasional cackle while Sehun promptly has a mental breakdown.

 

It takes them all of ten minutes to work out that everyone they’ve ed or wanted to this year, the other one has had them already. Their lives are a constant spiral of bad decisions. Sehun makes Tao buy him pancakes for wrecking his life like this.

 

After that morning, it becomes something like a game. Numbers are exchanged and Sehun starts to look forward to the Saturday night picture messages captioned “#horriblelifedecisions” and “he looks like my next mistake! x)” Drunk Tao has a bit of a thing for Taylor Swift, Sehun finds out. (It’s okay though because Drunk Sehun thinks every Beyonce song ever was written for him.)

 

It’s funny and exciting and if Sehun ever wants to text Tao stupid things during the week like asking how his day was or telling him about the thing his cat Pickle Dear did this week or send him stupid pajama selfies and caption them ty things like “wish you were here”, he squashes all that down flatter than a pancake. The last thing he needs is to get attached to his buddy.

 

+++

 

Then one day, out of the blue, it all ends. It starts with Tao not being on the train Sunday morning. Then he isn’t at their Starbucks or their Waffle House either and Sehun starts to panic. He fights with his own morals for about twenty seconds before he’s calling.

 

It takes two tries but eventually Tao answers. His voice is groggy and wrecked. Sehun fights the urge to giggle because he knows what a night full of s sounds like the next day.

 

“Are you dead?” he asks, with a lightness he doesn’t feel. Because this is more than Tao missing the train, this is Tao just waking up. Which means that Tao wasn’t kicked out or didn’t want to sneak out. Which means this is something new.

 

And it keeps being something new. Tao isn’t on the train for three weeks in a row and suddenly Sehun knows. Tao is off the market, for however long it lasts, and Sehun is almost consumed with the need to know who. He prowls the clubs and bars they both frequent with a ferocity most people reserve for sports and reality tv. He’s so into finding out who it is that when he does find out, it almost feels like a let down. You know, if it didn’t feel like someone had pissed on his heart and lit it on fire after.

 

Kai. His best friend/ buddy since middle school had managed to snag Tao’s interest. They’re laughing about something and Tao is just reaching up to push some hair behind Kai’s ear when Sehun runs around the corner and out of sight. He wants to puke, choking on anger and a sense of - betrayal? Where the did that come from.

 

He sneaks out the back door, digging for his keys in his pockets. It’s stupid to be upset, stupid to be hurt. They’re grown men, consenting adults, and Sehun never made a move. Never told Tao that he likes his stupid hair and his dumb ringtones and his million ing selfies on Instagram that all looked the same. He punches the dashboard of his car and sits in the parking lot for a long, long time.

 

+++

 

“Hello?” The phone call wakes Sehun out of a dead sleep. It’s ten a.m. on a Sunday and he’s never felt so rested. He doesn’t bother opening his eyes or even taking his face out of the pillow.

 

“Come down here and let me in or I swear to God, I’m gonna break your face.” It’s Tao and he sounds pissed. Sehun sits up, flailing wildly. Pickle makes her displeasure known.

 

“I never gave you my address. Like ever.” He’s already looking for a shirt though and stumbling down the stairs to the front door. He opens the door and Tao swans past him, looking like he has every Sunday since Sehun first saw him. He’s standing in Sehun’s living room with his shoes in his hands and his shirt on inside out. He looks like a wreck but Sehun can’t honestly say he’s seen anything more beautiful before.

 

He swallows the awkward lump in his throat and looks away. “What happened with Kai?”

 

“Kai, Kai, Kai,” Tao says turning in a slow circle. “Who is he again? Oh yeah. Your best ing friend that you neglected to tell me about the entire time I’ve known you. The guy I’ve been sleeping with and being bored senseless by because you aren’t man enough to take what you want!” He’s gesturing wildly with his hands, which still contain steel toed boots unfortunately, so Sehun takes a step back. “Oh no you don’t!”

 

“You’re going to break my nose with your shoes!” Sehun yells back, putting the couch between them. Tao just steps up on it and keeps going.

 

“You asked me out for coffee and you were so cute! I thought, ‘hey maybe this is going somewhere!’ but it wasn’t, Sehun. You never asked me on a date or, hell, even asked me for a on the train! What the is wrong with me?” Tao stops suddenly and collapses in a heap on Sehun’s couch. “What the is wrong with me?”

 

He sounds like he’s about to cry. “I ditched a perfectly good guy to come all the way here to - what? Yell at you for not liking me back? God, I’m so lame. I just… I couldn’t stay in his house and see those ing pictures of you and not do something about it.” Tao has his knees jammed up into his chest when Sehun sits down next to him.

 

“Why do you sleep with the same people every week Tao?” It isn’t the response Tao’s expecting, Sehun knows, but he hopes he answers anyway. Pickle twines around his ankles in comfort.

 

“The same reason everyone does. I want laid, they’re there.”

 

“You could do that with strangers,” Sehun says with a calm he doesn’t feel. He feels like he’s about to puke actually.

 

“They’re easy, I don’t have to pretend to like them. We hang out when we’re not ing too,” Tao sighs and rubs at his eyes. “Does all this have a point?”

 

“The point is that except for Kai, my longest lasting relationship has been with my cat. I’m not the boy people take home to meet their parents. I’m weird and quiet and I don’t really get people. But I get you.” Sehun lets out a shaky breath. “I’d like to keep on getting you.”

 

Tao snorts a little and carefully untangles Sehun’s hand from his pajama pants. He laces their fingers together and squeezes. “You already have me.”

 

+++

 

Nothing much changes after that, except for everything. Sehun sends Tao all the stupid hair pajama selfies he wants and lets Tao convince him that Pickle Dear needs to be leash trained. He gets to kiss Tao whenever he wants and have with him, which is the real prize because not only is Tao but he’s bendy and athletic to go with it.They get to walk down the street holding hands and Tao makes Sehun talk to their ex-mutual buddies and Sehun figures out that they’re all kind of cool. Even when they aren’t his .

 

And Sehun and Tao still ride the train every Sunday morning.