“We need one more plate for Tao.” I heard Joonmyun hyung as I entered the dining room. Baekhyun was collecting some plates from the dish rack as Jongin was helping Kyungsoo set the food on the table.

Everyone looked so busy – walking around and doing something like each of them has their own before-meals assignment. And here I am just… standing by the dining table. “Where can I sit?”

“Beside me.” Sehun walked up from behind, “and here’s your chair,” dropping a wooden chair in front of me.

“So, Tao…” Joonmyun hyung said as we all started eating. “What were you doing inside our room a while ago? You could have joined us by the couch. We were watching The Hobbit.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” I reached for some more kimchi. “I was video chatting with Kris gege.”

“Oh shoot!” we all were shocked as Chanyeol smashed his fist on the table. “I can’t believe I-“

“Chanyeol, table manners.”

“It’s Kris’ birthday!”

“Chanyeol…” Joonmyun hyung repeated, prolonging the last syllable while reaching for more rice.

“Sorry, hyung. I just… I can’t believe it’s Kris’ birthday today and I forgot about it. God.” He picked up his chopsticks and continued eating. “To think that the fans even paid the local bus operating company to advertise Kris’ face everywhere!”

Baekhyun coughed beside Chanyeol after drinking his water. “But why did he only talk to you?” he asked me. “We could have talked together in the living room. The whole floor’s particularly a wifi zone.”

At that moment I heard Jongin choke on his food. Kyungsoo, who was sitting beside him, grabbed the pitcher and filled Jongin’s glass with water while rubbing his back a few times. I eyed him carefully. As Jongin’s quasi-choking was done, he looked at me and smirked. I eyed him some more.

He heard. He knows.

“Well…” I continued, answering Baek’s query, “Gege said he’ll call again later in the morning and that I’ll tell you guys so that you can wake up and we can video chat together with the others at China.”­

“Sounds great then.” Joonmyun hyung smiled at me.

I smiled back at him but when I looked again at Jongin, he had his smirk plastered on his face.

Subtle eye-staring competition in the K dining room between Jongin and I. Just subtle because only the both of us are aware of the telepathic conversation we are having at the moment.

Then right when I was about to give up and be the mature one and finish my food, he looked away and faced Kyungsoo. Drat. He stared at Kyungsoo with soft eyes while the older was peacefully eating the food he himself cooked. Then Kyungsoo looked at him, apparently aware that Jongin was peculiarly gazing at him longer than normal. His eyebrows raised with all innocence as his eyes grew wide as how they usually do.

“What?” He mouthed to Jongin.

Jongin smiled. I watched them both across from me.

When Kyungsoo understood that he won’t be getting any reply from the younger, apart from a small grin, he smiled back as well.

Just like that.

~*~

The others are off to their individual rooms to catch some sleep. I was about to as well, but as I entered the kitchen area, from which I thought of drinking a glass of water first before hitting the sack, ­I noticed the TV was on at the living room.

I walked towards the TV. There were two heads visible from the couch.

“Aren’t you guys going to sleep yet?” I asked, disturbing the solitude in the room.

“In a while,” Jongin looked back at me. “We’ll finish this first.” and pointed towards the TV.

They were watching Pororo.

Yes. Pororo.

We meet again, childhood.

Kyungsoo turned back to look at me, “Come watch with us.” Jongin patted the space at his left as he nudged Kyungsoo to move a few inches to his right. “This channel airs late night Pororo encores. Isn’t that amazing?” Kyungsoo added while beaming.

I approached them slowly feeling a little awkward after seemingly disturbing a rather private-y moment between the two of them.

They don’t seem to mind my presence though. As I placed my glass of water on the table near the couch, Jongin tapped the space beside him indicating that I sit on it, which I did.

“Isn’t it a bit late to watch children’s cartoons?” I asked after a few minutes of only Krong’s growling and Pororo’s childlike animal sounds filling the room.

Jongin scoffed quite a bit as Kyungsoo answered, “Yes. Yes, it is. But it’s Pororo. Nothing is ever wrong with Pororo.” He glanced at me again with that friendly smile of his.

“He’s going to make a huge snowball.” Jongin pointed at the TV screen.

I looked at the screen, then at the huge snowball, then at my right. Jongin’s arm was draped over at Kyungsoo’s back.

It’s pretty obvious to me that there’s something going on between the two of them – something mutual and shared. And you know what, looking at them at the moment, it felt right.

As Jongin relaxed after a long sigh, stretching his legs even more as he slid a few inches down the couch, Kyungsoo looked at him to fix his hair and eventually let his head rest on Jongin’s shoulder.

“When did you know?” I couldn’t help myself to ask.

“When did we know what?” Jongin answered back without even bothering to look at me.

I bent my head sideways. Yeah… What exactly do I want to know?

When did they know they have feelings for each other? When did they know it’s already beyond friendship? When did they know the right time to admit it?

“Just… when?” I asked, for the lack of words.

Jongin smirked. “I dunno. It just happened.” And he lazily looked at me to give me a raise of his eyebrows.

“What happened?” I heard Kyungsoo whispered to him.

Jongin looked down to face Kyungsoo, “Us.”

Kyungsoo’s eyes widened again and he turned his gaze to look at me. “Is the sudden display of affection bothering you, Tao? ‘Because we could, um, we could…” he showed signs of sitting up.

“No, no!” I waved my hands in front of me. “Oh Earth’s green grass… And here I thought my presence is disturbing you. You don’t need to ‘tone down’ said displays of affection. It’s fine.”

I grabbed my glass of water and took a swig.

“So… you and Kris, huh?”

And suddenly, water is trying to escape through my nostrils. “Jesus Christ, Jongin.” Breathing became rather difficult at the moment.

“So it’s true then?” Kyungsoo butted in. “Are you and Kris-“

“Nothing’s going on between gege and I.” I carefully placed my glass of water on the table.

“Oh, but there will be soon.” Jongin gave me a nudge on the back and a few nods. “I can tell.”

I scoffed at him, “Oh, really now? Do tell.”

“Hyung…” Jongin softly nudged Kyungsoo. “I overheard Tao and Kris hyung talking sweet nothings earlier during their video chat.”

That good for nothing…

“You don’t just-!” Keep composure, Tao. You are a man; a Chinese man. “Nothing like that happened. There were no ‘sweet nothings’ exchanged. And the M guys were slicing cake and, hey…”

Kyungsoo was laughing.

“Oh, okay then. Go on. Just laugh. I’m glad I made you happy.” I waved my hand in the air.

“I’m sorry, Tao.” Kyungsoo reached and tapped my knee. He then looked at Jongin and gave him a wide grin. “But you do remember how it all started right? I mean, how the spark ignited the ember?”

Jongin glanced at Kyungsoo warily; giving him a scrunched forehead.

“Oh great. You see, Tao. Jongin forgot again.” Kyungsoo sat up this time. “Interview?” he asked Jongin.

“Oh, right! That interview.” Jongin snapped his fingers after immediately remembering what Kyungsoo was talking about.

“What interview?” I asked them in bewilderment.

“There’s this…” Jongin was waving his hand in mid-air, hoping he could find the right word that he needed, “random magazine or publishing company or whatever – damn! I can’t even remember why we had that interview in the first place.”

“Me, neither. Just skip the boring parts and get to the good stuff.” Kyungsoo nudged him excitedly.

“So there’s this… interview thingy that we did back; a couple of days after our debut, and hyung was asked what he thinks about me.”

“That time,” Kyungsoo butted in, “I knew I was already having feelings for him. I just didn’t know when, what and how to go with my confession.”

Jongin gave a loud laugh that filled the darkness of the living room.

Kyungsoo scratched his head, “Yeah, it was a confusing time in my life. A lot of strange feelings inside; bottled up feelings.”

Jongin shifted from his seat. “And then he answered something like every time he sees me dancing on stage he would find me really cool and y to the extent that he’d ‘fall for me’. Emphasis on the last three words there.”

“It’s true. I still do, though.” Kyungsoo slowly pulled Jongin’s face towards him.

I cleared my throat. “Skip the PDA. And then what happened?”

Kyungsoo removed his hand from Jongin’s chin. “I said some more flowery things about him; a few praises here and there. Then I waited for the release of the interview; constantly hoping that they wouldn’t cut my part out.”

Jongin: So when we got hold of the interview in print, of course we read it. I stayed calm and collected at first. Not showing any signs of realizations or anything.

Kyungsoo: Yeah. But the other members were teasing me with my answer.

Jongin: Because it was really cheesy, hyung.

Kyungsoo: Yeah, it was. But it was with a purpose!

Jongin: So, I waited until it was time for bed so that hyung and I will have our private time together to…

Kyungsoo: Talk.

Jongin: Sort out our feelings and such.

Kyungsoo: He freaking threw the interview print out on my bed and bluntly asked me “What’s this about?”

Jongin: Because my feelings needed sorting out.

I stayed silent all throughout their storytelling. No effort was needed because I couldn’t even in or ask a question since both of them looked like they were interrupting each other as they were retelling the primordial history of their love story.

“So we did talk that night; a pretty long talk actually.” Kyungsoo continued.

“Yeah, I didn’t sleep anymore.” Jongin rubbed his eyes as drowsiness is hanging upon us.

“And…” I started to intrude. “The rest became history then.”

“To put it simply, yes.” Kyungsoo smiled.

“And they all know?” I gestured towards the hallway where their rooms are located.

“Yeah, but I guess it was more like they all knew, maybe even before we did.” Jongin placed his arm over Kyungsoo’s shoulder and gave an unrestrained yawn.

“When we did tell them, you know, formally…” Kyungsoo added. “They were just quiet.”

“Joonmyun hyung was smiling his weird commercial smile. But overall, the normally loud K group was quiet.” Jongin gave a shrug of his shoulders.

Kyungsoo sat up straighter, “Well, yeah. But… looking at their expressions that time, I knew that they wouldn’t really mind. I guess they expected it all along.”

They expected it all along…

My thoughts were drifting away; to a place outside the four corners of the K living room. Maybe I was in deep thought or maybe I’m just really sleepy already. I was in my private bubble where I feel like I could stare at nothing all day and don’t think about anything but at the same time thinking of a million things.

“Here,” Jongin threw a pillow at me. “Hug that. It’s softer.”

I didn’t realize I was already holding my knees closer to my chest like I was hugging them.

“Jongin, Kyungsoo…” we heard a voice from the hallway. It was manager hyung. “Turn off Pororo and go to sleep.”

“Yes, hyung.” All three of us answered even though I wasn’t even called to doze off.

Jongin stood up and pulled Kyungsoo along with him while I turned the TV off and placed my glass of water by the kitchen sink. We walked silently towards our rooms.

“Be careful with your door, Tao. It creaks a little bit.” Kyungsoo told me as I turned our doorknob. “Lift it up first before you open. Sehun is quite the light sleeper.”

I was about to follow Kyungsoo’s instructions when I heard Jongin, “Just my two cents…”

“What?” I turned to face him. He lead Kyungsoo to enter their room first.

“You don’t need to wait for an interview.” He looked at me with his piercing eyes.

I glanced sideways. Maybe he was talking to someone else in the hallway apart from me. “And why should I wait for an interview?”

“My point exactly.” And he smirked.

I sneered at him. “You’re weird Jongin, do you know that? You sleep well tonight.”

“I’m just saying. Take it from someone who was at the receiving end. Good night, Tao.”

And he entered his room.

~*~

For the interview that KaiSoo was talking about, click here.

Thanks for reading, guys. Truly appreicate it... =)