I'd say I'm sorry for posting so late, but words aren't enough. Still, have some fluffy Taepyo as excuse OTL

Is there still someone anticipating this anyway? xD

Chapter 4

Jiho was currently eating his favourite steamed potatoes, comfortably laying on the couch and watching his favourite drama, when Jihoon suddenly burst in the room out of breath and his cheeks flushed.

“Jiho hyung, I need your help.”

Jiho slowly turned to his friend, his mouth still filled with potatoes and looked at him with suspicious eyes. Once he had swallowed his potatoes, he asked:

“And what would that be for?”

“Well, you know, for my date this weekend…”

Flashback

“Oh, so you’re Jiho’s roommate.” Taeil asked shyly.

“Yeah…you’re going to his new school?” For once, Jihoon was just as shy and awkward as the other boy.

From the moment Jiho’s friend, Minhyuk, had noticed his co-worker Kyung and introduced him, Jihoon had set his eyes on nothing other than the small and quiet boy. He didn’t even know which one of the other two was Kyung.

“Yeah, I’m his senior. I know I don’t look like it, but I’m already in third year. But who am I telling this, you’re probably already in college, right? Or even working? God, I’m sorry, I have no manners. Should I speak formally to you? I’m talking too much, ain’t I? And too quickly. That happens when I’m nervous, sorry. Now you must be wondering why I’m nervous, I have no idea myself you know, I have no reason too after all, haha. My neighbour’s cat died last week. God, I’m sorry. I’m Taeil, by the way. Lee Taeil, nice to meet you.”

Jiho starred at the boy in front of him and tried to register what he had just basically said in one breath. After analysing it all, he smiled and shook the hand Taeil extended towards him.

“I’m Pyo Jihoon, nice to meet you too. I’m in first year of high school, so if anything, I should speak formally to you. For some reason, I’m kind of nervous too, it must be in the air.” He chuckled awkwardly. “And I’m sorry for your neighbour’s cat.”

End of flashback

“I don’t understand, how is that getting a date?” Jiho asked, confused.

“Wait a second, would you, it wasn’t over yet!” Jihoon scolded him.

Re-Flashback

“I’d love to talk more to you, but it looks like Jiho wants to go home…” Jihoon said regretfully, secretly hoping Taeil would ask him to see each other again. He didn’t, but he suddenly looked so sad, almost as if he was about to cry, that Jihoon gathered enough courage to ask him himself.

“But what do you think, we could meet next weekend or so…?”

Taeil looked as if he was about to jump in the air for a second, but then his face got gloomy again.

“My parents will never allow me to go out with someone they don’t know for at least a year…”

“I will be your alibi, then!” Taeil’s friend (Jihoon had no idea if it was Kyung or the other one, Jaehyo, he believed) suddenly jumped out of nowhere, as if he was listening for the whole time already. Which he probably was.

“We’ll just tell them we need to study in the library, your parents will be fine with it. They rather like me.”

“Actually no.” Taeil stated nervously chewing on his lip, which Jihoon found adorable. “They don’t. My mother thinks you’re a slacker who’ll only distract me from my studies – which isn’t completely false, but I ain’t complaining – and my father thinks that you’ll eventually drag me “to the dark side”, which again, isn’t as wrong as it should be. So I’d rather ask Kyung, but thanks anyway.”

Real end of flashback

“And that’s how I got my date. Kind of.”

“I see. But that doesn’t tell me how you need my help.”

“Well, for that…” Jiho was startled when his younger friend begun shifting on his feet, looking down, while talking. Since when had he been so insecure? “You know, I’d like to be in god shape when meeting him, so I thought about exercising…”

“And you’re asking me?”

Jiho’s statement was followed by a short silence, and then explosive laughter from both sides.

After continuously laughing for a good two minutes, Jihoon chocked out, still in between laughter “Crazy, right? I don’t even know what I was thinking, asking you of all people!”

After laughing some more, Jiho’s voice died down, and he looked at Jihoon, who was currently rolling on the floor laughing.

“You know, I think that’s enough. After all, I do at sports, but there’s still worse than me.”

This only made Jihoon laugh even harder. Jiho’s face now showed no sign of amusement anymore.

“Seriously, stop now.”

*

“See, I always told you love would come to you when you least except it.” said Jaehyo while sitting down between Kyung and Taeil on the latter’s bed.

“You never said that. In fact, you once said: ‘Love will only come to you if you take the first step in its direction’.”

“Yeah but that was only so you would agree to go on these blind dates.”*

“What?”

“Don’t look at me like that, it went great, didn’t it?”

After only getting two incredulous stares, he auto-corrected himself.

“Ok, it didn’t, but at least you acquired some dating experience.”

“Whatever.” Kyung dismissed Jaehyo with his hand “More importantly, we need to discuss what you’re gonna do this Saturday. Oh, and also, how far are you planning to go?”

Taeil looked at Kyung with big eyes.

“What do you…? I don’t understand…”

“He’s asking if you plan to start next week not being a anymore.”

A squeaky cry escaped Jaehyo’s throat as he was being hit by a pillow and a math textbook.

“Taeil baby, what is happening? Are you alright?” Taeil’s mother asked, sticking her head through the always open door. She looked around the room and her eyes stayed on Jaehyo just long enough to shoot him a venomous glare before returning a sweet smile on her lips.

“Nope. Don’t worry, Mum, I’m fine.” Taeil answered shortly, returning an equally sweet smile to his mother who nodded, satisfied, and left the room.

“See?”

“I never noticed…she really doesn’t like me…” and Jaehyo begun sulking in a corner.

Taeil got serious again and turned to Kyung with a shy face.

“I don’t know why I should even tell you, but I don’t plan to go any further than what’s appropriate for the first date.”

“Taeil, when talking about love and relationships, the word appropriate loses all its signification at once.”

Seeing Taeil’s reaction – or lack of reaction in this case – Kyung patted his shoulder in a friendly manner.

“Now tell me, what do you think of…Jihoon?”

“You know, it’s weird, I’ve never had that feeling before. Until just a few hours again I didn’t even know about his existence and now he’s all I can think about.”

“I guess that’s what you call love…” Kyung mumbled.

Jaehyo, who was done sulking, sat down on the bed again.

“I’ve been wondering for a while now. How comes our Kyungstar knows so much about love?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Kyung asked offended.

“Well, as far as I remember, the only relationship you’ve ever had was with…wait, I don’t remember anyone, actually.”

And again, Jaehyo met a pillow and a textbook in a not so comfortable way.

*

Jiho wasn’t sure if he should change anything in his behaviour towards Kyung after what happened the day before. When he decided to go see his old friend Minhyuk, he had no idea that he would meet Kyung of all people. Maybe he should act as if nothing had happened. He was positive that Kyung’s behaviour wouldn’t be influenced by it either, so why was he still thinking about it anyway?

Jiho was currently sitting in class, his desk neighbour Hwayoung was talking to him, but when he noticed she was, he realized that she had been talking for a while and he had no idea what she was talking about. So he decided to ignore it and pretend like he didn’t know. Just when he was about to take a nap on his desk, he saw Kyung walking in and he couldn’t help but worry about his extremely tired looking face. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for days, which probably wasn’t true, but still Jiho unconsciously got up and before he knew, he was standing beside Kyung’s desk.

When he noticed someone standing beside him, the redhead looked up only to look down frowning immediately.

“What do you want?” he muttered while taking his books out of his bag.

“Are you okay? You don’t look really good. I mean, you look tired, not that you look-“

“Yeah, yeah, whatever…”

“No, seriously, I’m worried.”

A dry chuckle escaped Kyung’s throat.

“You? Worried? About me? That’s just about as credible as a butcher walking towards a little calf, knife in hand and singing “Everything’s gonna be alright”. So, I’m asking again, what do you want? Really, this time.”

“Is it that unconceivable that I’m worried about you?!” Jiho shouted, maybe a little bit louder than he should’ve had, because at once the whole class was silent and looking at him.

After overcoming the short moment of shock, Kyung blinked quickly a few times and looked straight into Jiho’s eyes.

“Yes. It is.” And without any further explanation, he got up and left the class.

*

For Taeil, Saturday arrived faster than it should’ve had. It was like he couldn’t think about anything but Jihoon for the whole time and the thought of really being in love like Kyung had said, frightened him. Didn’t it usually take going on several dates, or at least knowing a person to some extend to fall in love? It’s not like Taeil didn’t want to be in love. In fact, he had tried several times to fall in love with people who interested him, but he always ended up finding more and more reasons not to. And in the end, it was the heart’s decision and it was a fact that his heart had never beaten as fast for anyone as it was beating for Jihoon now.

Because of this, it was a very nervous Taeil who was waiting in front of the metro station, more than half an hour too early. When he realized how early it still was, he decided to go drink a coffee to calm his nerves. He was about to go, when he heard a deep voice shouting his name. He looked around, afraid to have hallucinated, but there he was, Jihoon, running in his direction. The moment he saw him, Taeil could swear he knew what love was, because it felt as if his heart jumped a few miles in the air, which he knew was technically impossible.

Although it was obvious that Jihoon had seen him, Taeil raised his hand in the air and started waving. When it felt like it was too long for him to wait, he begun making his way towards Jihoon through the sea of people. When they finally reached each other, Taeil wanted nothing more than to hug Jihoon very tightly, but he guessed that even though this was a date, this would still be considered as inappropriate, so he held back.

But Jihoon didn’t, and tightly wrapped his arms around the small boy in front of him. He put his chin on top of Taeil’s head and a content sigh escaped him when he felt Taeil’s arms shyly wrapping around him as well.

“I missed you.” He whispered almost inaudibly and Taeil felt as if he could die on the spot and still be the happiest person alive.

“Me too…” he answered, voice muffled in Jihoon’s chest.

After reluctantly letting go of each other, Jihoon held Taeil’s hand in his own tightly, even going as far as to intertwine their fingers and with nothing but a smile he pulled Taeil with him. Not that the smaller boy minded.

After riding the bus for about half an hour, they got off at an Aquarium. Jihoon had picked the location without Taeil knowing and he was currently a bit nervous about whether Taeil would like it or not. His worries disappeared when he saw the elder’s face brighten up even more as he laid his eyes on the entrance, where pictures of various fishes welcomed the visitors. He decided it was a good idea to come. Seeing Taeil being so happy he wanted nothing more than to hug him tightly but he thought it was better to be cautious. Even though they both had acted pretty much like a couple for the past hour, this wasn’t exactly a date (as much as he wished it was) and while talking to Taeil on the bus ride, he had realised how much he already liked the boy and how much they had in common. The last thing he wanted was to scare him away by acting too clingy already so he put himself together and, instead of hugging him, just casually laid his arm on his shoulder and led him to the ticked booth.

*

Minhyuk was practicing alone – which happened more frequently recently, thanks to Yukwon being in a relationship – for hours already, when he heard the door to the dance studio crack open. He turned around with a smile, excepting to see his best friend coming in, but his smile turned into a frown when he recognized the visitor to be no other than Suzy, Yukwon’s oh-so-perfect girlfriend.

“Yukwon isn’t here.” He stated the obvious, hoping to get rid of the girl as fast as possible.

“I know. He went to Gwangju to visit his grandmother.” After seeing Minhyuk’s questioning look, she continued. “I came to talk to you.”

“Uhm, okay? Well, want to sit down?” Minhyuk wasn’t really comfortable around Suzy. Not because she was his crush’s girlfriend, but because she gave off a very snobby vibe. And because she seemed very hostile towards him.

“No need, it won’t be long.”

The dancer just shrugged before slumping down on the floor himself. He was realizing only now how exhausted he was. How long had been practicing again. He looked up to the clock but it was blocked by Suzy. Oh, right. Suzy.

“Okay then, I’m listening.”

“Good. I will come straight to the point. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I need your help.”

Although a bit offended, Minhyuk was curious. He raised an eyebrow, indicating he was ready to hear her out.

“I’ve talked about this to Yukwon several times already, but he just won’t listen to me. Maybe you can convince him. I want him to stop coming here.”

“What?”

“Actually, I want him to stop dancing altogether. I know, for now he thinks it’s the most important thing in his life, but it’s such an unstable future. I don’t care about you, you do what you want, but I don’t want Yukwon to waste his time with something like…this, when he could use it studying to get a job. My parents think so too, they have connections that could get him into law school, but for that, he needs to study day and night for the next two years.”

Minhyuk was too taken aback to say anything. He needed to proceed what he just heard. After starring at Suzy for a good minute, he finally found his voice.

“Law school? Yukwon has never even indicated a tad bit of interest for that.”

“I know, but it’s a good thing. He doesn’t have to like it at first, but later he’d be thankful. It’s hard to get a good job these days. Plus, that would make it easier for him to get integrated into my family, not to talk about the facilities our kids would-“

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. Your family? Kids? Have you planned your entire future with him already?”

Suzy shrugged, unimpressed.

“Of course. It’s a good thing to plan the future out. Anyway, so you’re helping me?

“What- no, of course not. Yukwon is my best friend, and dancing is his passion, it’s his dream. It may not be the most stable path, but it’s the one he choose and you have to accept that. I will not let you make him give up on it.”

Suzy sighed, exasperated.

“That’s what I excepted. I hoped I was wrong, but looks like I’m not.”

“You thought I was gonna agree on this stupid plan?”

“No. I thought you might have a crush on him and therefore refuse to let him go, but I wasn’t sure. Now I am.”

*~*

Again, I am so, SO sorry to have disappeared like that for over a month, but...yay, here I am! *silence*

Anyways, I don't have much so say this time, except thank you again to all my wonderfull readers, wheter you subscribed, comeneted or are just reading this, THANK YOU! :D

And since some people seemed confused about Minhyuk (yes, he's BTOB's Minhyuk^^), I added a little character description in the Foreword :)

I LOVE YOU ALL (I really do), and as I said, I might be slower than the lovechild of a turtle and a snail, but I will NEVER give up on this fic, so, if you only have some patience, you will see the end of this, I gurantee you :D

*I actually wrote a whole section about this (Taeil on his blind dates) which was to be included in Chapter 2, but I didn’t publish it, cause it didn’t contribute to the story that much^^