Jongin yawned loudly, slapping himself on the cheek lightly as he distractedly clicked on random articles on his laptop, trying to keep himself awake. He had dance practice in a little while with Yixing and Sehun and really couldn’t be bothered with Seunghwan chewing him out again for being late. It wasn’t as if he was late on purpose, he just had a habit of falling asleep at the most inopportune times. What could he say, he liked sleeping and when you were living a lifestyle where you could only get 3 hours (4, tops) of sleep a night then you were bound to fall asleep at some point during the day. That was if you didn’t fill yourself up on energy drinks and candy and coffee like Chanyeol did, of course. The guy was like a walking corpse; Jongin really didn’t know how the taller man did it sometimes.

He yawned again and covered his mouth, shaking his head and widening his eyes in an attempt to energise himself. He should probably go and do something productive like clean his room or catch up on his university work, and not sit slouched on the couch in the living room like a sloth lazily clicking through page after page on the internet. But, alas, he was comfortable, and wouldn’t be moving from that spot until the very very last minute when Seunghwan dragged him out of the dorm kicking and screaming with Sehun and Yixing in tow to dance practice. He wouldn’t fall asleep this time, he just wouldn’t.

He missed Tao. He just wanted him to come back to the dorm and curl up with him on the couch and his hair and listen to him whine about how hard his life was until he had to go. They hadn’t really had much time to spend together lately; what with their manic schedules and the fluttering about from studio to studio and doing interview after interview and dance practice and vocal practice and live shows and variety shows and Jongin’s head span just thinking about it all.

He pouted to himself and pulled his phone out of his pocket, going to his messages and clicking ‘new’.

To: Taozi
when are you going to be home? i miss you ;A; xxx

He waited for a couple of minutes before his phone buzzed, indicating that he had a new message.

From: Taozi
i miss you too jonginnie!! i’ll be home soon tho!! practice has just finished :))) <3

Jongin smiled and typed out a quick ‘ok, hurry up!’ before stuffing his phone back into his pocket and turning his attention back to his laptop again.

He ended up on Naver’s news section and was idly clicking random pages when ‘'EXO'S LIFE QUEST' PART 1” in the sidebar caught his eye. He remembered that interview: they had to say what they liked about each of the other members and what they thought about them. He hummed to himself and clicked the link, curious as to what the others had said about him. As the page loaded he tapped his fingers absentmindedly on the keys in an indistinguishable rhythm.

He scrolled down the page and giggled to himself, reading Joonmyun’s, and then Baekhyun’s, up until he got to his own section. He was curious as to what Tao had written about him. Of course, he couldn’t have written a 5 page essay on how much he loved him and how great he was in bed because, hello, ‘no scandals otherwise you’re out on your , Kim Jongin’. What he was expecting, however, was not anything like what Tao had actually written. He had to read it twice over to make sure he read correctly. Was he joking? Was he ing with him?

He had been expecting something along the lines of, ‘great dancer, great person, great singer, blah blah blah’ but not anything like just a simple, ‘dark skin, good friend’.

“What the ?” He murmured, eyes widening.

Dark skin? Good friend?

Good friend?

Jongin scoffed and sat back in his seat, folding his arms across his chest and looking at the screen with an incredulous expression. Was Tao being serious? Jongin tried to think rationally about it; he knew that he couldn’t have put something like, ‘Jongin is the love of my life and I want to have his babies’ but he could have put something a little more… expressive? He couldn’t help but feel like Tao had just completely disregarded him and put lovely things about all the other members apart from him.

He pouted at his screen but carried on scrolling down, feeling disheartened but knowing that he was just being a whiney little brat about the whole thing. That was until he got to Sehun’s section of the article. What he saw made his stomach knot and feel as if he’d been punched in the face.

TAO: Best friend forever!

He knew that Tao and Sehun were close, and that they were really good friends, but Jongin thought that he had claimed the title of Tao’s ‘best friend forever’. He felt as though someone had walked up to a 4-year-old him and told him that Santa wasn’t real and had proceeded to kick him in the stomach.

He knew that he was totally overreacting, because he and Tao were together, and had been for a while. That they done stuff that Jongin wouldn’t dream of doing with friends; like cuddle and kiss and make love to one another, so why did it hurt so much that Tao didn’t see him as his best friend, when Jongin seen Tao as his?

And speak of the devil, just as Jongin lifted his head up the man of the hour came strolling through the door, hair matted to his forehead with sweat and clothes sticking to him, having just come from practice. God knows he always pushed himself to his absolute limit and always walked away looking like he’d taken a shower with his clothes on. As he walked into the living room his eyes lit up at the sight of Jongin sitting there, walking over and plopping down on the couch next to him.

“Hey baby,” Tao smiled, kissing Jongin on the cheek and relaxing back into the cushions, letting out a long breath. “God I’m hungry, I feel like I could eat like 7 burgers or something.”

“You could eat that anyway.” Jongin murmured, pouting and trying not to look the older male, because he knew that if he looked at him that all his annoyance would just melt away and he’d just end up not bringing it up to Tao, and he wasn’t about to let him get away with it. He thought for a brief moment that he was blowing everything totally out of proportion, but he figured that he was a brat and he knew it so, why not live up to the name?

Tao laughed flatly, sounding exhausted and like he was on the edge of sleep already. Jongin turned his head to look at his boyfriend, taking in his fuzzy hair and sweaty skin, before making a face and turning back to the laptop screen.

“How’s your day been? Do anything fun?” Tao asked airily.

Jongin snorted and shook his head, before realising that Tao still probably had his eyes closed and couldn’t see him and mumbled a ‘no’, clicking somewhere on the laptop with more force than was necessary. He was getting more wound up as they both sat there; wanting to just ask the older male about it so he would stop being such a little about it.

Tao hummed and sat up, curling an arm around Jongin’s waist and leaning his head on his shoulder, looking up at him through sweat-soaked bangs, “You sound agitated, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Jongin scowled, freezing up slightly at the contact.

“Now I know that that’s a lie. Come on, Jonginnie; tell me what’s bothering you.” Tao said, moving away from the younger male slightly and gazing at him with kind eyes.

“I said nothing, hyung. Just leave it.” Jongin half snapped, catching himself at the last moment, noticing the way the older male’s eyes widened fractionally.

“Now I definitely know that something’s wrong. You never call me hyung, only when you’re in a mood with me. Have I done something to upset you?” He asked, looking at him with concerned eyes and propping his chin up on his hand.

Jongin rolled his eyes and closed his laptop forcibly, sliding it onto the coffee table and getting up from the couch before he was pulled straight back down onto it by a large hand grabbing onto his wrist. He huffed and tried to pry his wrist from Tao’s hold on him, but with no avail; God damn did he have a strong grip.

“Hyung!” The younger male whined, getting ready to just start throwing punches at his boyfriend if he didn’t let go of him soon.

“I’m not letting you go until you tell me what’s wrong.” Tao said sternly, making Jongin feel like he was being scolded by his dad, never mind by his boyfriend who was only a year older than himself.

“, Tao, let go of me!” Jongin struggled, thinking about resorting to just biting Tao’s stupid fingers off so he would let go of him.

“Jongin!”

“! Fine! You said that Sehun was your best friend forever and it pissed me off because I thought that I was your best friend forever and now I feel like crying!” Jongin yelled hurriedly, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back into the couch, pouting like a child.

Tao was silent for a moment before he threw his head back and burst into laughter; his high-pitched hooting reverberating around the room and making Jongin’s brain throb against his skull.

“Shut up! It’s not funny!” He exclaimed, punching Tao weakly on the arm.

“It is! It is funny! Jesus Chris, Jongin, what are you, five?” The older man cackled, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes.

Jongin huffed and blew his hair out of his eyes, standing up with the goal of running to his bedroom, burying himself underneath his bed covers, and pretending that none of this conversation ever happened, only to be promptly pulled back down onto the couch again.

He turned to Tao with watery eyes and weakly tried to pull away, not even caring anymore. Tao wasn’t taking him seriously and was laughing at him and he felt as though he was going to burst into tears, his stomach knotting and unknotting and making him feel sick.

“Please, let me go, I have practice.” Jongin said quietly, willing the tears in his eyes to retreat and to not spill over onto his cheeks.

Tao stopped laughing immediately and his eyes widened at the sight before him, of Jongin trying so hard not to cry and , now he felt like the biggest in the world for making fun of his boyfriend when he had been seriously upset about something. He took hold of the younger male’s hands in his own and the skin softly with his thumb.

“This really upset you, didn’t it?” Tao asked gently.

Jongin nodded wordlessly and pulled his hands free from Tao’s grasp, wiping the moisture away from his eyes roughly.

“Baby, we’re already going out, that’s way closer than being friends.” Tao smiled, moving closer to the younger male and taking hold of his hands again.

“I know, it’s just that—even though you’re my boyfriend, you’re my best friend as well. I tell you things that I could never tell any of the other guys, even though I’m close to them too.” Jongin said shakily, butterflies attacking his stomach from every angle. “You’re warm and kind and caring and I think that’s why I fell in love with you in the first place. You were my best friend before you became my lover, but you still are and always will be.”

Tao’s eyes softened and he wound his arms around Jongin’s neck, pulling him into him and hugging him tightly, whispering quiet apologies into his ear. Jongin closed his eyes and sighed softly, wrapping his arms around the older male’s waist and settling into his neck, inhaling sweat and cologne and something that was just… Tao. It smelt like warmth and love and something that distinctively smelt like home.

“Jongin-ah, you mean more to me than anybody else in the whole world,” Tao began, playing with the small wisps of hair on the back of Jongin’s neck. “You’re not just my boyfriend, you know, you’re a lot of things to me than just that.”

Jongin pulled away and looked at Tao curiously, wondering what he was talking about.

“You’re a lot of things to me, Jongin. First of all, you’re my boyfriend. My love, my baby. I wouldn’t give you up for the world.” He smiled, bringing a hand up to caress Jongin’s cheek softly. “But after that, you’re a lot of other things. You’re my dance tutor, when I can’t get the steps right and you’d stay with me for hours until I finally got it.”

Jongin laughed pleasantly and leant into the touch, loving the feel of how soft the skin on Tao’s hand was.

“And then, you’re my guidance councillor. You’re the first person that I come to when I need to talk to someone; when I miss home, and my family, you’re always there to cheer me up and take my mind off of it. You’re my rock, and I don’t know what I would do without you sometimes. When I’m stressed out, when our lives just get to me, you’re there to make it better. You make me laugh and smile and hug me and kiss me and are just basically everything that I ever wanted.”

Tears begin to well up in Jongin’s eyes again, and he felt himself fall even further in love with the man in front of him. Christ he felt like a girl.

“Even though you’re smaller than me, you make me feel safe. You keep me sturdy and grounded and make me feel protected and loved. In this chaotic existence we have, you’re the only constant thing in my life, and I’m really thankful for that. You help me realise that even though most of the time we’re all running on empty and ready to collapse at any given moment, that there’s always something to smile about.” Tao grinned, leaning forward and brushing his nose against Jongin’s cheek.

“I’m not that much smaller than you.” Jongin said quietly, smiling, curling his hand around the back of Tao’s neck and the skin gently.

“And lastly, Jongin, you’re my friend. My best friend. My best, best friend in the whole wide world. When I first came into the company I was just a scared, lonely trainee and you were one of the only people who actually made an effort to talk to me. You had the worst Chinese accent I’d ever heard and you made me laugh so hard until my sides hurt.”

“Being fair, your Korean was the most God-awful thing I’d ever heard in my life.” Jongin chuckled, bumping his forehead against the older males’ playfully.

Tao sniggered and nodded his head, remembering the memory fondly, “And I’m not much better now. It’s only been, what, four years since we met?”

Jongin laughed melodically, eyes crinkling up and pearly white teeth showing in a wonderful smile. Tao beamed back at him and closed the gap between them, pressing his lips against Jongin’s plump ones softly, their noses bumping and causing them both to giggle and pull away.

“To sum it all up, Sehun may be my best friend forever, but you’re my best, best friend forever, which is a thousand times better, and comes with a lot more perks.” Tao grinned, Eskimo kissing the younger and making him giggle and swat at him cheerfully.

“So don’t worry, Jongin-ah. You’ll always be my best friend forever. Even if for some reason or another we might break up in the future, you’ll always be my closest and dearest friend and I’ll never let you go.” He finished with a soft kiss to Jongin’s lips, massaging them gently with his own.

Jongin’s eyes slipped shut and he melted into the kiss, happily nibbling at Tao’s bottom lip until he pulled away laughing softly again.

“And you’ll always be mine, Taozi. I love you.” Jongin whispered, bumping his nose against his boyfriends gently, lovingly.

“I love you too, baby.” Tao smiled, laying back on the couch and pulling Jongin into him so they were lying together comfortably.

“Mmm, didn’t you say you were hungry?” Jongin muttered sleepily.

“Don’t wanna move. Wanna stay here with you.” Tao garbled back, nuzzling into Jongin’s neck and giving the skin a small kiss.

They lay there for a while, just dozing and cuddling each other before Tao suddenly jerked forward and shook Jongin awake, the latter incoherently and wiping the drool away from his mouth.

“Wake up! Didn’t you say you had practice soon?” He asked, eyes wide and fearful, knowing that Seunghwan’s wrath was no ing joke.

Jongin’s eyes flew open dramatically; he lurched forward and choked on his own spit, diving into his pocket to fish his phone out. And when he finally seen what time it was, his whole life flashed before his eyes and he swore he could faintly hear Seunghwan raging up a massive storm in the background. Oh, .