The alarm goes off.

Taemin doesn’t feel rested at all, but at least his headache is gone. The sheets rustle, the alarm is silenced and Taemin is already drifting back to sleep when Kibum says “You’re still here?”

The memory of their argument – the memory of his world being turned upside down – comes rushing back, chasing away the ghost of sleep and leaving Taemin wide awake. Wasn’t he at his own flat last night? What fresh hell is this? “Huh?”

Kibum swears, low and gruff. “God give me strength,” he says “I can’t deal with you when you’re like this. Are you awake? Do you understand what I’m saying or are you just nodding to whatever-”

“I’m awake,” Taemin answers, sitting up.

“Really? Because it’s morning and you’re still here and not at all bothered that in about an hour the manager is going to expect to pick each of us up alone!”

There’s nothing to do other than to go with the flow, so that’s what Taemin does. “I can be home in time, don’t worry.”

“What are you waiting for? Go!”

*

Taemin takes a taxi back to his flat, which looks just as lived-in as it did yesterday, feeling more confused than ever. He checks his phone for the date, but it’s a futile exercise; he can’t remember the date of his argument with Kibum and he never bothered to check the date yesterday either, so when his phone tells him that it is 7am on the 2^nd of May, it’s just information without context.

His phone rings. Euisoo says “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” and Taemin says he’ll be down even though he knows he will be late. Kibum complains about having to wait when they pick him up, Euisoo blames it on him and they have a semi-quiet ride in the car with Kibum and Euisoo lightly bickering over the air-con settings.

“What are we doing today?” Taemin asks.

“You’ve got the concert merch meeting with the design team, that’s a group schedule, Kibum has a radio appearance at night, but apart from that you’re free.”

Euisoo’s reply does not give Taemin answers, only more questions. If he is indeed stuck reliving the same day of waking up next to Kibum who is pretending – or not – that they’re not together, why would little details like this change? But if time is flowing correctly and a whole day has actually passed, how on earth did he wake up in Kibum’s house despite falling asleep on his own couch?

“LEE TAEMIN!”

Taemin turns to Euisoo, annoyed at having his thoughts derailed and at such volume too. “What?”

“Yah, you were the one spacing out,” Kibum says. “I would have poked you, but hyung is nicer than me.”

“I was asking, do you want me to book the practice room for you tonight?”

Usually, Taemin would say yes, but today he declines the offer.

*

“Didn’t we already do towels?”

“We do keychains all the time, what’s the harm in doing towels again?”

Jonghyun and Kibum are the ones prolonging the meeting, this much hasn’t changed at least. If Taemin has indeed fallen into an alternate universe – as impossible as that is – it seems that the one thing that remains constant is the work. He had been an active participant earlier, but he’s said everything he wants to say and now he’s content to allow the sounds of Jonghyun and Key’s back and forth wash over him like a song.

“We already voted against it,” Jinki says.

The creative director quickly backs him up. “Yes, and besides, we’ve already filled the required pricing slots, so we don’t strictly need a towel or anything else.”

Jonghyun looks like he wants to argue, but Kibum claps his hands together and says “Well, that’s settled then. Shall we call it a day?”

“Yes, let’s,” Jinki agrees. “Wanna get lunch? Does anyone want to get jjampong at Singgil?”

“Oh, I do!” Minho agrees, at the same time Jonghyun whines “I’ll break out.”

Taemin’s barely processed the replay of yesterday’s conversation when Kibum says “Nah, I feel like having grilled meat today. Oh, Taemin-ah, do you want to come along?”

He dumbly nods, wondering what the change in Kibum’s choice of food forebodes.

“I guess grilled meat-” Jonghyun starts, before being sharply cut off by an elbow to the side.

Minho, who supplied the elbow, quickly says “Nah, we agreed on noodles. You can get cold noodles hyung, that doesn’t aggravate your allergies.”

Does Minho know? As far as Taemin knows, his relationship with Kibum is a secret known only to them and Comme des and Garcons, but he can’t think of any other explanation for Minho’s strange behaviour. Did Kibum break their pact and tell him? As far as Taemin knows, Kibum is a secret-keeper of the highest confidence; perhaps it was Minho who guessed and confronted Kibum about it, and Kibum being his best friend admitted to it. Either way, Taemin finds, he doesn’t mind. Kibum is his, and he is Kibum’s.

*

The grilled meat place that Kibum takes him to is some fancy-pants place in Itaewon that doesn’t even have grills on the tables; instead, the meat is grilled in the kitchen and served to them on heated stone plates. It’s far too posh for this sort of food, but it is private.

Today, his appetite is a little better. He eats a few slices of grilled tenderloin and some grilled kimchi which isn’t as charred as he would have liked, generally enjoying the meal, until Kibum says “We need to talk.”

“I know.”

“Yah, don’t look so sad.” Kibum’s voice is petulant, playful. It’s such a difference from the cold front he presented yesterday. “You make me feel bad, am I so mean that you’re scared to talk to me?”

It’s as if things have gone back to normal, but as much as Taemin wishes he could be relieved at the dissipation of Kibum’s anger, the strangeness of his day has him unsettled anyway.

“Anyway, I was just going to say that we have to be more careful. I know you didn’t intend to oversleep, and it’s partly my fault as well that I didn’t notice you hadn’t left. We got away with it this time, but what if someone had seen you leaving my house this morning? What if manager-hyung dropped by early for whatever reason?”

“I get it,” Taemin replies. The concerns Kibum’s raised are precisely why, when he had all but moved in to Kibum’s flat, they had informed their managers that they would be carpooling to work for the foreseeable future. It had been clear enough from their reactions that they knew exactly why such an arrangement had been made, but none had cared to pry further; the media wouldn’t out them and one or two sasaeng fans they have now only follow them to the airport and schedules. “I’ll be more careful next time.”

“Maybe next time I’ll drop by your place,” Kibum replies. “It’s been a while since I did that.”

It has indeed, but Taemin guesses that Kibum means it in an entirely different way than he hears it.

“Shall we get another serving of meat? Is there a particular cut you want?” The beef is of the highest quality, and the cook has grilled it to perfection, but the little appetite that Taemin had has evaporated – and he doesn’t even know why. Kibum looks surprised when he turns down the offer. “Hey, are you okay?”

“I’ve got a headache,” Taemin says; it’s a convenient excuse, and one that’s not entirely untrue.

Kibum tsks sympathetically. “Yeah, you’ve been looking peaky all day. Why didn’t you say anything?” He rummages through his bag and pulls out a pouch of herbal medicine, which he slides over to Taemin. “This isn’t specifically for headaches, but I find that it relieves it a bit. You can have it.”

*

It’s only when Taemin gets back to his flat – in a taxi Kibum had called for him – that he understands the hollowness he’s feeling.

He doesn’t even sleep over at Kibum’s place anymore.

Instead of the herbal remedy Kibum had given him, Taemin pops an ibuprofen and a Xanax for good measure and gladly succumbs to the nothingness of sleep.