Nicole looked between us for a second before forcing out a laugh and twisting out of both of our grips. She backed towards the vending machines, putting her hands up in a pleading gesture.

“Come on guys, we’re here for Dongwoon, let’s deal with this later, okay?”

When neither of us responded she furrowed her brows and looked at us like we were kids.

“Okay?” she repeated with more anger in her voice.

We both nodded like the scolded children that we were. I leaned down to help pick up the snacks that they had dropped and locked eyes with Key. He scrunched his face and stuck out his tongue at me and I laughed, relieved that we could still be normal.

“That’s the spirit!” She giggled as she locked arms with both of us and pulled us back towards Beast’s waiting room.

We spent the time laughing and playing but there was an underlying tension that filled the air wherever we went. Nicole didn’t sit or stand near me once after pulling us both into the room. Every moment I went near her she made an excuse to move to the other side of the room or talk to someone else. It couldn’t be more frustrating. At least if we’re going to pretend to get along, we should do it fully! And then to rub salt on the wound, every time she would shift away from me, or sit next to someone who wasn’t me, it was Key. She sat next to him during the special stage and stood and cheered next to him when we were backstage.

If you didn’t already know, you wouldn’t know there was anything wrong. But there was. Despite the smiles between the three of us, it didn’t feel like anything was okay. Finally after Beast had gotten back to their room and we told them how awesome they did, I stepped outside to check my phone. Damn.

I had 8 missed calls. Six from the hyungs and two from the producer. And the two from the producer came significantly after the others, which seemed to indicate that it was a last resort. I was screwed.

I turned to go back in and found myself face to face with Key who was on his way out.

“Hey, come with me for a sec?” he asked in a low voice. I nodded and yelled into the doorway for Nicole that I would be right back and for her not to leave.

Key was dressed in his usual fashion, which is to say dancing a line between ridiculous and runway chic. When we were a significant enough distance away, he stopped and turned back towards me.

“You’re an idiot.” He spoke bluntly which I’m used to by now.

I nod again and shake my head a little bit right after.

“Fine, but—” I try to respond but he cuts me off.

“No, you are just an idiot, for so many reasons I can’t even count.”

This doesn’t seem fair. I shake my head more emphatically. But once again he talks before I can get a word out.

“Stop. Just listen.” He speaks with more force when I open my mouth to interrupt. “If you want to fix things between you and Nicole you will shut up and listen to me.”

I shut up.

“Okay, so you know when things went wrong, right?” I nod. “Okay, and you know why things went wrong, right?” This time I hesitate before nodding, but I do it.

His eyes narrow at my hesitation and he purses his lips.

“Tell me why things went wrong.”

“Because I forgot to pick her up.”

He nods and then waits as though waiting for more.

“And because she felt like I was choosing someone else over her.”

He nods and smiles and asks me, “And why would a person feel that way about another person?”

I think for a second and say, “Well I did leave her for hours and so—” Key cuts me off again.

“Oh god, again with the stupid.” He puts his face in his hands then sighs and looks up. “No, I mean, when a person doesn’t like another person spending time with people who are not themselves, what does that mean?”

I look at him blankly, having a hard time understanding what he’s trying to get at.

“Look, when I’m spending time with Nicole away from you and you hear about it or even see it, how does that make you feel?”

Oh, I think, she’s jealous. And I smile. A smile bigger than I feel like I’ve given in a while. A smile that reflects the rainbows and sunshine that are filling my chest and I can barely see because I’m smiling so hard. And I don’t care about the producers or the hyungs or anything else as long as this means what I think it means. And then I remember all the reasons why this could be untrue.

“Wait,” I say and watch as Key’s face falls from the bright smile he was sharing with me seconds before. “Maybe she’s really just upset because I left her for three hours or maybe she really feels replaced in a platonic sort of way.” As I speak my chest feels heavier and heavier and I get less and less sure at the possibility that what I’m saying is true.

“No,” Key almost yells, “Trust me, it’s the first thing you thought. I’m not going to say it straight out because I promised I wouldn’t and I wouldn’t even be doing this if both of you weren’t idiots but you are so this is what it has come to.” He stomps his foot for emphasis and I roll my eyes despite the feeling that I’m suddenly floating on air.

“But why are you doing this?” I ask him, genuinely curious. “Don’t you like her?”

“So you thought that. No, I don’t like her. I mean I love Nicole, she’s one of my closest friends. But no, not that way.”

“Then why…” I ask, thinking back to all the times I saw him with her recently.

“I had to be sure you felt the same way so I wanted to conduct a test of sorts,” he says, “and before you think it, she had nothing to do with it, she didn’t even notice I was acting differently.”

I just stare at him without saying anything. So, Nicole was jealous of Seohyun and me. She felt the way I felt when I saw her with Key.

And then all at once it hits me what he’s saying. I like Nicole. And not in the You’re my ideal type way with Seohyun. In that bone deep every single thing about you I want to experience and revel in and know. The way she laughs and smiles at everything, the way she lets me take care of her and takes care of me in return, the way she tries to take care of everyone around her and the way that she makes me smile just by standing in front of me. And suddenly, I’m a man on a mission. I have to get to her, right now.

I regain my senses to Key waving his hand in front of my face asking if I’m still alive. He’s smiling and I’m smiling and he pats me on the as I make my way back to the room with a “Go get her, tiger.” And I laugh because I want to and everything seems better and more wonderful.

When I finally get back to the room, I see her sitting on the couch next to Dongwoon, both of them leaning over some game on the IPad Beast shares. She laughs at Dongwoon when he dies, which I know because he suddenly starts spazzing out and yelling about how it was a glitch and he did make that jump. I go and stand in front of them still smiling when they look up.

Dongwoon smile brightens but it hurts a little when I see hers disappear when she catches my eye. I have to remember she hasn’t had the revelation I just had and that it’s going to need some coaxing.

“Hey,” I say, “come outside with me.” I hold out my hand to her and hold my breath as I wait for her to take it. She does but drops it the second she is standing and suddenly I’m feeling significantly less confident. She follows me as I walk towards the exit of the building.

I can’t stop my mind from racing. Maybe Key was wrong; maybe he was playing with me. Or maybe it’s even possible that she did like me and she’s gotten over me in the past few weeks. I open the door and hold it for her without thinking; she passes in front of me, still not having looked up once.

She hates me. I know Key isn’t that cruel and he wouldn’t play with me like that but obviously he had old information. She’s over me and wants to—

“I like you.”

My mind stops. Did I just speak out loud? But I wasn’t thinking about me liking her but about her hating me and so that doesn’t make sense. I turn to look at her but her head is still down.

“I like you.” She says as though repeating herself. And she is, she’s the one who said it. My mouth falls open.

“It’s why I needed time,” she says, looking up now, “I need time to get over you and let you go.”

I open my mouth to say something but she talks over me when she sees it coming. What is with everyone interrupting me today?

“I know you like Seohyun and I didn’t want to ruin that or ruin our friendship and I wanted everything to go back to how it was but things just got out of hand so I’m telling you.” She said it all with one breath and took a deep one to make up for what she had lost to get the rest out. She looked into my eyes as she spoke now. “I don’t want this to change everything but I understand if it does. You’re my best friend, I want to always be involved in your life, and you need to know that.” She sounded so earnest and worried and she looked so pretty and sad and I just start to chuckle.

I know immediately it’s the worst thing I could have done and try to contain it when I see her eyes widen incredulously but I’m just so happy that I can’t. She turns around, stomping back into the building, throwing “I take back what I said, I hate you,” over her shoulder as she went.

I chase after her, still laughing and pull her into one of the many rooms lining the hallway. Luckily it’s empty and I settle her in front of the closed door. She’s huffing and pouting and I want to kiss her because she’s the cutest thing I have ever seen.

I wipe the smile off my face and put my hands on the sides of her head, leaning down over her. “Take it back,” I growl down at her. She looks up, surprised and a little bit hopeful.

“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,” she says, but I can see she’s holding back a smile.

“Take it back or I’m going to kiss you,” I warn, smiling a little bit but she knows I’m serious.

Her eyes widen even more and her smile falters as her breathing picks up pace. She looks down, cutting off our eye contact for a few seconds before she glances back upwards, determination clear in her eyes. “I hate you,” she says again and we both smile a little bit.

I lean forward on my arms, bending at the elbows as we both close our eyes. Our lips touch and it feels like my heart is going faster than is medically healthy. It’s simple and wonderful and perfect for our first kiss, but I want more. I lift my head, ready to lower my face to hers again when I feel her hand on my chest.

“Wait,” she says, she cheeks flushed and her hand trembling where it’s resting on my shirt. “What about Seohyun.”

I smile down at her before backing off because I have to say this correctly since I know I’d be sensitive if she was discussing Key.

“I don’t know how to say it,” I admit. “But ever since we starting fighting, I’ve barely even given her a second thought. Every time the phone rang and it was her instead of you, I was disappointed.” I see her begin to argue, probably something about once she’s back I’ll go back to Seohyun or some sort of nonsense.

“Yes,” I say finally cutting someone else off, “she was my ideal girl. But now I see that it was in some sort of distant sense. She had everything I thought I wanted in a girl. But you, you’re everything that I never realized I needed.”

We both laugh because I’m so corny but at least she’s smiling and she’s walking towards me and putting her hands up around my neck and suddenly there’s not enough air in the room.

“Really?” She asks, even though she already knows the answer.

And I barely get half a nod in before she’s leaning up towards me on her tippy toes. I close my eyes and wrap my hands around her waist, squeezing her body towards mine as I take over the kiss she initiated. As I slant my mouth over hers, and she opens hers to me, I can’t help but wonder how I didn’t realize earlier. How well her body fits to mine.

After a few more seconds I pulled away from her, quite certain my heart was going to stop if we went any farther. I pulled her over to a couch that was sitting against one of the walls. We sat next to each other, her head on my shoulder and my head resting against hers, our fingers laced together. She had her bare feet out on the table set in front of the couch, angry red marks where her shoes had pushed into the skin. I grabbed one of them and started to massage away the marks.

“You don’t have to,” she says but doesn’t make any move to pull them away.

“Yes, that’s obviously what you want, it’s not like this is anything new for us.” I say this with a smile, honestly happy that our relationship doesn’t have to change in drastic ways for us to become more than friends. She smiles in agreement but it falters after a moment.

“Can we do this?” She asks, lifting her head from the couch. “Are we sure we want to do this.”

I turn my body towards her, still holding her foot and ask, a little bit afraid, “are you having second thoughts?”

“No, but,” she starts to respond but I cut her off again. I don’t like where this is going.

“Is it because,” I say in a whisper, pulling her foot up near my mouth like a microphone. “I’m a creep,” I sing to her, “Or is it because, I’m a weirdo-o.”

We both laugh so hard that tears come out of our eyes. I’m so happy in this moment and I want her to be happy. I don’t want her to be afraid to be with me or what anyone else might think.

“We’ll be careful, Okay?” I tell her. “We’re still best friends, just with a little bit extra.”

She smiles and then suddenly brings her eyebrows together and pouts.

“You haven’t said it yet,” she says. “Say it.”

I widen my eyes in mock innocence. “Whatever do you mean? What haven’t I said?”

She narrows her eyes and pokes me in the side, whining a little bit as she repeats herself. “Say it, please.” Her bottom lip slips out farther than normal, glistening slightly.

I lean down and kiss it before pulling back and saying the words she wants to hear.

“I like you,” I say, and pause before pushing forward with my thoughts, “I think I love you.”

Her eyes get bigger before she laughs and throws her arms around me, pushing her lips onto mine and squeezing me in a hug.

“You’re mine,” she says, peppering my face in kisses, “Only mine.”

--

Author: OMGUH. okay. sorry because i'm sure this is riddled with mistakes and that this is slightly rushed but I had to get this out for my lovely reader xineanne who has stuck by me these many months and kept track of my lack of updating so <33 FOR BEING SO AWESOME. So here it is in all its horrifying glory. I hope you like it and I hope it wasn't a disappointing finish! I'm so sorry that I spread this along like two years but it's done now! :D 

also i'm over at tumblr if you want to check me out but honestly i reblog little to no 2am/shinee/kara so idk why you would. i'm a beast/exo stan and currently working on kaisoo for anyone that is interested. i have the first part posted on livejournal but i'm sure you don't care so i'm not even going to link it keke. ty for reading to those who do read!! :) ilu.