For Kai, falling in love with Kyungsoo had been as natural as the gradient slope of his shoulders. He couldn’t help it nor fight it. He had put himself through many horrible relationships through high school. All of them had started off great. He fell readily into the love that the other claimed to have for him. Yet every time he began to give himself fully, he found himself slamming into a brick wall, rejected and discarded. And every time it happened, he’d find himself running to Kyungsoo for comfort.

Sure he was close to Yixing, Chanyeol and Baekhyun, but it was different with Kyungsoo. There was something about the way Kyungsoo would hold him as he sobbed over his broken heart that made Kai feel safe. There was warmth in Kyungsoo’s embrace that Kai had never felt with anyone else. There was comfort in the words that Kyungsoo spoke that rekindled Kai’s belief in love. Above all, there was something within Kyungsoo that reflected a part of Kai that he had never been able to show. Kyungsoo was brave, kind and wonderful. He was full of the light that Kai longed for, but had never been able to find.

Kai felt his heart aching to reach out to Kyungsoo; to pull Kyungsoo into a world that he desperately wanted to share with someone else. But each time he tried to reach out, every time he tried open his heart, Kai readily withdrew.

He would never be as brave or as kind as Kyungsoo. Kai couldn’t see a life without Kyungsoo, but he couldn’t see Kyungsoo accepting him either. The more he tried to deny himself of what he truly wanted, the more trouble he got himself into. And the more trouble he got himself into, the more Kyungsoo would be there to comfort him at the end of it all. It was always a bittersweet moment to be crying over the pain of his last failed relationship, yet revelling in the sweetness that was Kyungsoo.

Towards the end of high school, much to Kai’s shock, Kyungsoo confessed to him. To him. To think that he had been playing a game of tug-of-war with his emotions for Kyungsoo and Kyungsoo had sat there feeling the exact same way for him. Kai didn’t need to think twice about it. He had been more than ready to jump into Kyungsoo’s arms. He had never felt such a reciprocal love before and he didn’t expect he ever would. Now that he had what he had for so long yearned for, Kai was never going to give it up. He could never give up a love that was finally