“Why do you never choose me?”

“What?”

Kibum already regrets asking. Damn the soju and damn his pathetic, soju-soused self. He never gets like this – emotional and too ready to force confrontations he knows well enough he’ll never win – when he’s wine-drunk. “You know, when they ask who you’re closest to. You never say me.”

“Really?” Taemin shrugs and helps himself to more soju. “I must have sometime, it’s not like they ask us this a lot anymore.”

“Not once.” Kibum’s kept track, that’s why it gets to him. “Not one single time.”

“Well…” Taemin blinks at him, seemingly at a loss for words. “I don’t know. Are we close?”

“How ing drunk are you to be asking me that?”

If Kibum were sober, he would know not to back Taemin into a corner, whether literally or figuratively. Taemin’s passive, almost docile, for the most part, but when provoked, he can be surprisingly cruel.

“I’m not drunk and it’s a fair question,” Taemin argues. He takes another shot of soju and the empty glass at Kibum. “You never spend a minute more with us than you have to. When was the last time you called me, or Minho or Jinki-hyung, our for a meal when we didn’t have a schedule? Or when it’s not being filmed for some variety or another?”

“And you do?” If Kibum is guilty of preferring to spend what little free time he has with his friends, surely Taemin is guilty of the same. At least Kibum has a wide and varied roster of friends to rotate between, instead of the same four individuals – to the point where their managers think he’s dating one of them.

“Yes.” Taemin’s answer is swift, certain. “We do. I ate out with Jonghyun-hyung all the time. There’s this tteokbokki stall that I call Mnho-hyung out to whenever I eat there, and there’s this chicken restaurant that Jinki-hyung and I order in from. But you wouldn’t know that, would you?”

“I cooked for you,” Kibum protests, remembering a time when a stick-thin Taemin would wake him up in the middle of the night begging for food and Kibum would cook for him despite not being able to eat anything on the strict diet he was on.

“That was almost eight years ago, hyung.”

“So we’re not close because I don’t eat out with you?” It’s such an arbitrary measure of closeness, more so because Kibum hadn’t known that this was the standard by which he was being judged.

Taemin sighs and thumps his head against the plastic table. “Can’t we just drink?”

“We’re supposed to talk about these things, remember?” That’s what the therapist had said; Kibum had been tempted to ask him whether he’s happy with his job, his marriage, his children, whether he feels like he’s a rat running in a wheel and if so, who he cries to about it. He never did though.

“Don’t.” Taemin’s voice is steel. “Don’t bring him into this.”

Kibum knows he’s gone too far, so he backs down. “You still haven’t answered my question. I’m paying for all this, the least you can do is talk to me.”

“You never went for any of his concerts. 45 concerts, and you couldn’t find the time to attend even one?” Taemin shakes his head. “You never made it to any of mine either. Every one of us went to our concerts, but you couldn’t even drop by for half an hour just once?”

Kibum has nothing to say, no defence, no witty reply.

“You didn’t even send flowers to my concert.”

"I bought you an expensive wallet!" 

Taemin pours them both another drink. "You should know better than anyone that money isn't affection. The only time we hang out is when we’re practicing for concerts or flying or in the waiting room.”

“You play with me all the time,” Kibum says then. “More than the others.”

“Yeah, I play with you, as if we’re still fifteen. I don’t know how else to interact with you. The moment the conversation gets a bit personal, you back off.”

“I don’t-”

“Are you gay?” Taemin looks him straight in the eyes and Kibum turns away. His face burns with embarrassment. “No one even dares ask you. When you brought Hyeong Seop to our show, were you dating him? You told us he’s your friend.”

“Why does this matter? Me not telling you about every random fling means we can’t be close?”

“How can you be close to someone you don’t know? Do you know Minho-hyung tries so hard to make it obvious that he'll accept you for whoever you are? He always talks about how this and that athlete is totally hot and how he'd marry them because he hopes that you'll see that he isn't a homophobe. The rest of us, we gave up a long time ago. How can you be close to someone who doesn’t trust you?”

Kibum starts to deny Taemin’s accusation, but in the process of forming an argument why Taemin is wrong, Kibum realises that he’s actually right. It’s a chilling realisation. He always assumed that he’d trust s with his life, but it turns out that he doesn’t. And they know.

“Taem-”

“Why can’t you trust us, hyung? What did we do wrong?”

“Excuse me!” Kibum is startled by the ahjumma, and so is Taemin. “It’s closing time, please pay up and leave.”

She shakes her coin purse, unaware of the important conversation she’s just derailed. Kibum pays her and adds in a bit of a tip, and by that time Taemin’s already hailed a cab. Kibum wants to tell him to wait, but he’s lost his courage.

“Bye hyung,” Taemin calls out. “Text me when you get home.”

Kibum waves him away, knowing that he won’t; he never does.

***

hi guys! this is pretty dark and gloomy, but i guess i'm in a dark and gloomy mood. as always, do let me know what you think.