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His mother always told Tao not to bother the big kids too much. “They’re twice your size and mean and rowdy. I don’t want you getting hurt!”

It was sound advice because Tao was easily the smallest kid this side of the neighborhood and the next closest to him in age was three years older, a foot taller, and way too much of a troublemaker and prankster for his mom’s tastes. And all that made Chen the perfect person to spend a summer tailing at the park, and it didn’t matter if the older kids picked on him and occasionally bullied him. It didn't matter that they usually connived to meet Tao out at the playground for adventures and somehow end up dumping Tao along the way or leaving him behind at the roller blade park. The nine year old Tao was man enough to take it! And in either case, it was better than sitting at home playing in the kiddy pool with his four year old baby sister. 

“I won’t be the runt in the pack forever!” Tao bravely stood up to them at the beginning of the next summer. Twins Yixing and Yifan laughed at him hilariously, and Luhan snickered with his mouth hanging open, but after a year of doing his time, they grudgingly accepted him into the group. Chen decided, and Chen’s rule was law. He’d earned their respect, even if he wasn’t the oldest. 

He spent the summer still being harassed but at the end of the day, Chen would laugh at him and pat his head and tell him he was cool, and it didn’t matter that he never said it around the others. Tao knew, and Chen knew, and it was their special secret. 

When he started the 5th grade he finally got to attend the same school as Chen. Their parents had a nice little talk over the backyard one day about Tao walking to school with the 8th grader, since Tao was still so tiny and they didn’t want him going on his own. 

“Guess it’s you and me,” Chen said on their first day. “Just don’t embarrass me, don’t get clingy, and don’t come bother me during school hours.” They parted every day on the corner about a block from school when Chen crossed a little early to one side of the street, and Tao only crossed over at the designed school cross-walk. Tao figured as long as Chen still had him in his sights, it fulfilled his promise to their parents to keep watch over Tao, but for now it was enough. The walk home was just the same except in reverse. 

He didn’t sit with them during lunch, and he didn’t play around with them during recess. The twins were too intimidating, and even if Luhan said 'Hi' to him every now and then, Tao was too scared to actually break Chen’s rules and talk to him during school hours. Anyways, he had their twice daily walks to spend time with Chen and plenty of things and toys and games and movies and cartoons to discuss, during designated be-friends-with-Chen-hours. And then there were the occasional afternoons, and a few weekends, and then most afternoons and every weekend where Tao hung out with Chen in his room and they played games or shared comics, and Tao secretly idolized the elder. It was mostly great, except for the school hours segregation.

One day before Christmas break, however, Tao left school at the end of the day with a huge knot on his forehead a band-aid hiding the bloody gash. Chen had to pry the story from him about how some little 5th grader even smaller than Tao had thought it funny to throw rocks at him during recess. The next day, Tao was moved to their lunch table and he played ball with the older kids at recess, and one little disgruntled kid named Kyungsoo got suspended for a whole day. 

“How come you weren’t going to say anything?” Chen asked him one day during the break. They were playing games and Chen’s fingers were flying across the buttons of his controller. 

“I don’t know?” Tao gulped. He didn’t want to admit that Kyungsoo was scary as hell. “I thought nobody would believe me. Or that you wouldn’t care.”

Chen grunted but didn’t reply, and his focus never left the game they were playing. Finally, when Tao thought he wouldn’t say anything anymore, Chen said, “You think it’s gonna get better if you don’t say anything? Speak up and don’t just accept whatever people do to you. If you’d acted like that all the time I wouldn’t have accepted you into our gang. But you did, once. And that makes you cool. So don’t let ever let people treat you like that again, you hear me?”

Tao nodded frantically and they never mentioned it again. 

The rest of the year was the best time of Tao’s short life. He had friends, both at home and at school, nobody ignored him, and Chen even stopped treating him like a kid. It was easy to pretend they’d always hang out and always be together.

Then Chen graduated and moved on to high school and Tao was alone again. 

Two full months into the school year and Tao knew depression like the back of his hand. He rarely saw his neighbor now, since the other's school was in another direction from his. Chen promised to spend time with him in the evenings, but soon enough he had too much homework to make time for fun, and then he joined the freshman tennis team and the rest of his afternoons and weekends were taken up. 

Tao had no friends, because he'd never bothered to make them before. But now everyone he knew was gone. The twins moved back to China and both Chen and Luhan were at another school making new friends whose name wasn't Tao.

He sulked most lunch periods, listening to the bothersome noise of the rest of the 6th graders eating their meals happily but not really hearing anything. Until someone sat down next to him. Tao felt the other boy's presence before he even saw him, and he flinched when he finally looked at the boy.

“Hi,” said the boy who just last year had pelted Tao with rocks.

He didn't know how to respond. Kyungsoo didn't look like he was about to murder Tao, but then they were in a public place and last time he'd gotten caught he was suspended. Maybe he was just being sneaky.

“What happened to your friends?” the boy asked curiously.

Tao didn't want to admit that he was without protection, but then it was common knowledge they had all moved on. “Graduated. They go to high school now, but I still see them every day after school!” He had lie that much at least!

“Oh,” said Kyungsoo simply. “Well, want to be friends then?”

Tao gaped at him. Was it only his imagination or didn't he once have a huge welt on his head because of the boy now proffering friendship, and Tao had gotten him in serious trouble? Kyungsoo, it seemed, had forgotten the whole thing.

It was the start of a whole new way of life for Tao. Kyungsoo wasn't the same as Chen. He wasn't as cool or as friendly, and he had nearly no social skills. But then neither did Tao so they fit for the most part, and neither were alone anymore. Tao took great pride when he came home after school one day with Kyungsoo in tow, and they met a very confused Chen in his driveway about to cycle back to school for tennis practice.

“Tao? What's... what are you doing?”

“Just hanging out with Kyungsoo, Chen.” Tao got a rise out of the way his voice was cool and even. Almost too cool and even. Kyungsoo ragged on him later.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“What was what?”

“Sounded like your were flaunting me in front of him or something...”

“Uhmm... oh. Uhhh? Hey I'm hungry, aren't you?”

In the 7th grade Tao became a stalker once more. Or maybe he became more of a busybody, if the definition his mom once gave about his grandma spying on her neighbors had ever once crossed Tao's mind. He didn't mean to get curious all of a sudden, but he couldn't help looking out his second floor street-facing bedroom window one evening and seeing Chen come out of his house to greet and hug a really cute boy with puffy cheeks. Tao accidentally spent the rest of the night craning his neck in that direction waiting to see if anything else happened, and except for a short time when he raced to the bathroom and back, he kept watch until late and didn't see anything else. 

Something about that hug was suspicious. It was too cushy. Too sweet. Too romantic...?

He learned a few days later (when he blatantly asked his neighbor on the lawn before they both separated for school) who the new friend was. 

“Who do you mean?” Chen asked. “Oh, oh, you mean Minseok? Yeah he's my age.”

“So... you hang out a lot?” 

Chen laughed. “Yeah, something like that.” Then he proceeded to ruffle the younger's hair in a condescending manner, reminding Tao that he was just a little boy and had no knowledge of big boy matters. Or at least that was how Tao interpreted the head pat and proceeding chuckle. He shirked off the hand and huffed and stomped his way to school and spent half the morning complaining to Kyungsoo about Chen's “new friend” without making a whole lot of sense, and without understanding why the whole thing annoyed him so much. 

Kyungsoo was a simpler person. “So, you're jealous.”

Tao huffed for the second time that day. “What? No... What are you talking about? Hey what did you bring to eat for lunch today?”

After a few more months of not stalking his neighbor, Tao came to a startling discovery. The “new kid” he liked to refer to with as much disdain as possible was actually super nice. And also, somebody else's boyfriend. Tao found out one chilly winter holiday afternoon when, shock of all shocks, Chen invited him over to spend the day playing video games and Tao came over excited and jumpy and excited and bristling with energy and excited, and found Minseok already sitting happily on Chen's living room couch, on top of Chen's old friend Luhan. 

“Hey, Tao. Long time no see,” said the man on the bottom. 

Chen had to walk by and physically pop shut Tao's hanging jaw. “Don't stare. You'll make Minseok uncomfortable.”

“H-hhuh?” 

“They're dating,” Chen whispered in a sound that definitely carried. “But don't make it look like it's so obvious. They don't like it.” 

Tao didn't think anything could be more obvious than a guy sitting in his boyfriend's lap, but he didn't question Chen's logic (because seriously what was the point in that ever) and indeed the couple looked mildly embarrassed. So that made Chen's joke not quite a joke, but it also it meant that Chen wasn't dating a guy, and Tao didn't know whether he should be thrilled at that or just plain bummed out. 

It was in the middle of the following spring semester that Kyungsoo said something outrageous. He was over at Tao's house one evening supposedly to work on a joint school project, but neither of them had discussed a school related topic for at least two hours. Kyungsoo was much more interested in watching the highlights of the mid-week football games on Tao's old TV set, and Tao was more occupied by the sound of car doors opening and closing in front of his neighbor's house. Luhan and Minseok had come by, and along with Chen the three of them were going out. Since the last Christmas holidays Tao had been invited over a couple times to hang out with the older guys, mostly by himself and couple of times with Kyungsoo, but always he felt like the youngest there and the odd man out. He'd actually stopped accepting half of the invites and that was only because he felt awkward, or that Chen had to work extra hard to talk to him when he had nothing in common with his other friends. None of that, however, affected his ability to casually observe Chen's comings and goings through any of his front- and side-facing windows. 

“You like him, don't you,” said Kyungsoo.

“What?” Tao looked away from the window quickly. Kyungsoo chuckled.

“I said, you like him. It's true, isn't it?”

“What?” He could only repeat the word blankly. “N-no... I d-don't...”

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes and laughed mockingly. “You're so obvious, seriously. I can't believe Chen hasn't noticed it. I mean, how long have you been following him around? Half your life?”

“It hasn't been half my life,” Tao replied petulantly. Then he realized by omitting the first part, he had basically confirmed Kyungsoo's words. Incorrectly, because of course he didn't like Chen. He just liked him as a friend...

“Whatever,” Kyungsoo said. “I've got you pegged.” He fortunately didn't bother Tao for the rest of the evening, but he had made it so Tao didn't get a chance to watch the guys drive away in Minseok's super cool car. Maybe when Tao got older and had a car he could drive Chen around in it. Probably by then though Chen would be gone and away to college or something, and that was seriously the most depressing thought in the world. 

Kyungsoo's words of course planted a seed in Tao's brain; a deep seed that rooted itself and grew like a vine that slowly choked out all of Tao's denials. 

He liked Chen. Always had. Before though he just didn't have a name for it. Chen went from being the cool guy Tao looked up to and admired and trailed around the playground like a puppy, to the person he'd managed to wheedle a loose kind of friendship deal, to the person who was in the back of Tao's mind every other second. It no longer mattered that they didn't hang out all the time, or that they didn't speak more than a few words every few days when in passing. Whenever he saw Chen now, Tao's stomach muscles clenched and his heart thudded. He started plotting elaborate schemes to accidentally cross paths with his neighbor - his crush - nearly every morning and every evening. He left for school a half hour early because that's when Chen left his house; he connived to be sitting on the porch or in the garage between the hours when Chen came home. He congratulated himself heartily when Success with a capital 'S' happened: whenever Chen saw him and waved or said 'Hey, Tao,' before going indoors.

It wasn't much. And unfortunately Tao knew that. He knew it like the pit in his stomach knows when it's hungry, and especially when it is starving. Tao was starving.

At Kyungsoo's urging, Tao decided to be bold for a change - or well, if being bold meant passively agreeing to go over to Chen's house one Saturday evening in the summer before Tao's 8th grade year. Chen's 'boyfriends' were there. That was how Tao liked to call Luhan and Minseok anyways since the three were practically inseparable even though only two were actually together, and Chen was the persistent third-wheel friend. None of them seemed to mind though. Tao always felt the most awkward, because it wasn’t fair how a fourth-wheel friend like himself could still be more of an outsider than a guy who constantly hangs around a dating couple.

Life wasn’t very fair though, Tao thought. If it was, then he would have been born three years earlier and then at least Chen would be in his range for… special hanging out times, or dating. Dating would work fine too. If Tao had been older.

The four of them were gathered around the TV, pizza boxes laying out mostly empty and a two-liter bottle of coke drained to the last drop. Most of it had gone into Tao’s stomach. He was starving after all. His mother was starting to complain about his latest growth spurt, and speculating that he’d soon be taller than his dad. He hadn’t gotten there yet though. At least he was as tall as Minseok now. Small comfort in this day and age.

Chen played with his phone distractedly while they watched a movie. He snorted at the latest text, however, and tossed it onto the next couch. Tao watched it closely, as if it would betray something of Chen’s feelings. He didn’t have to wait long.

Minseok looked over at his boyfriend’s friend. “What. Is my sister bothering you again?” He laughed and Chen reciprocated the laugh.

“Yep.”

The oldest boy shook his head sadly. “She just doesn’t get it, does she?”

Tao had to ask them specifically what they were talking about. Luhan explained. It seemed Minseok’s ‘baby sister’ had a crush on Chen and nothing could dissuade the poor girl that Chen just wasn’t interested. There might have been more to the conversation but Tao tuned out when they started joking around. 

“Yeah, maybe if she was three years older!” Chen cackled.

“You’re going to make her wait around that long!” Luhan cried.

Minseok rolled his eyes and said something depressing about having to deal with her while he waited for her crush to wear off.

It was the most damning thing Tao had ever heard, and he didn’t care about the girl at all.

If he was just three years older, and a girl… Indeed, life wasn’t fair at all.

“Hey, where you are going?”

Tao stopped in his tracks. He was halfway across the lawn separating his and Chen’s family’s homes. Where was he going? Home, to cry himself to sleep. Not really but it was pretty close to the truth.

“Uhm… home. Got stuff to do.”

“Stuff?”

“Yeah… stuff.”

“What, like homework?” Chen asked.

“Uhh, yeah.”

“It’s the summer. What kind of homework do you have to do?” Chen was always the skeptical one. It was fortunate though that Tao had a perfectly good excuse.

“Summer reading? Supposed to finish some books before school starts.” It was a half-truth anyways. Sure he had a pile of books, but he didn’t plan on actually reading any of them until the first week of school when he’d cram like a mad man.

Chen still looked skeptical, but he smiled and hooked an arm around the back of Tao’s neck. “Sure, okay. Anyways, you could come over more often.”

Tao was having a hard time keeping still. It wasn’t often that Chen was this close to him, or that Chen initiated some sort of contact like this. He used his side vision to glance at the older boy, trying to gauge whatever reason Chen had to want him around. His face was a pleasant blank though. Hardly useful for determining whether he was just being his usual friendly self or...  anything more. Probably nothing more.

It was cozy like this though, with just the side of Chen’s body warm pressing into Tao’s side, and his head pulled unnaturally close. Why did he like Chen? Tao tried to recall every reason. Was it because he was cute in a very masculine kind of way? There was something about his face that had always drawn Tao to him. There was also the personality, an icy sort of friendliness that had always confused Tao. On one hand Chen was a social creature, always inviting and pleasant, but then he only ever had a small group of close friends, and even with them, even with Tao, he was impartially distant with his emotions.

Tao wanted to crack into that. He just didn’t know how to, and either way… he was too young to try. Wasn’t that what he’d just understood inside with the discussion about Minseok’s poor suffering sister? Tao and Minseok’s sister. Both so tormented. Not that he cared about her one bit. At least Tao wasn’t so obvious in his affections and still had Chen this way, as a friend. Nobody scoffed at him behind his back!

Or did they…? 

Tao flushed unconsciously. Hadn’t Kyungsoo claimed he was too obvious? He shook his head at the same moment Chen pulled his arm away and ruffled his hair.

“Hey, what’s got you so red?” Chen asked, a partial smile gracing his lips.

“Nothing.” Tao fixed his hair. “Just hot. See you later.”

He walked back to his house as fast as he dared and hid himself in his bed sheets until he was sure that if he looked at himself in a mirror he wouldn’t see a lovesick boy looking back at him.

He spent the better part of 8^th grade trying to let go and ignore his neighbor, much to Kyungsoo’s amusement.

“So, you’re just going to forget all about him?”

“Yes.” Tao’s answer was definite, solid, firm, unchanging. His inner turmoil, however, suggested otherwise.

He figured that out soon enough when the first girl asked him not-so-slyly if he wanted to invite her to the 8^th grade winter dance. He turned her down, and the next three girls after her who all hinted not-so-subtly that they’d like the same thing. The girls themselves weren’t the deciding factor though. By this time Tao knew he wasn’t interested. It was after the fourth rejection though that a boy in his class finally picked up on something and cornered him after school one day.

“Hi.”

Tao jumped when he realized someone was talking to him so familiarly, and that that person wasn’t Kyungsoo.

“Hi?” Tao returned somewhat suspiciously.

“I’m Sehun.”

“Tao.”

The boy smirked. “I know. We’ve uhh… been in the same classes for two years, remember?”

Tao stared at him blankly. The face and the name were definitely familiar, but then so were half a dozen other students that Tao didn’t have time to care about.

“So, I hear you’re still free for the dance?”

Tao immediately scoffed. “Yeah? Why? Got a sister or a friend who wants to ask me out?” He scratched his head and started looking around the school yard, wondering what Kyungsoo had gotten up to and when he could hurry out and save Tao from all these stupid requests.

“No,” said the other boy simply. “Actually I was just asking for myself.”

That got Tao’s attention. “H-huh? What? W-why would you think I’d want to go to the dance with you?”

“I don’t know. Something about how you’ve rejected every girl who’s asked you so far, and you didn’t even bother to think about it.”

Did everyone in this school know everything about him now, or was it just Sehun? Before he could ask him though he spotted Kyungsoo, and he hadn’t ever been so excited to see the guy since the time he’d seen him being dragged out of elementary school by his mother who had him by the ear, scolding him for pelting a student [Tao] with rocks during recess. Not that the situation was anywhere near the same. This time he felt relief instead of glee, and maybe that was why he didn’t immediately remember to say ‘No’ to Sehun.

“Uhhm, I have to go. Talk to you later.” Then he ran for it. 

He did end up going with Sehun, ‘just as friends, okay?’

Kyungsoo razzed him for days about finally coming out of the closet, and Tao steadfastly refused to think about it. Instead he pretended in his room in the days leading up to the dance that it was Chen he was going with, and not the unnaturally tall and skinny kid from his classroom that he’d apparently known for the last two years. He also forgot in those days that he’d promised not to think about Chen like that anymore.

It was too late though, and when Sehun and his parents came to pick up Tao (and Kyungsoo, who Tao insisted needed to come with them), Tao was particularly anxious that Chen would see.

His worst fears came to life when his neighbor on whom he still had a super big crush came out of his house at the exact moment that Sehun tried to hug him. Tao flinched violently and tried not to notice Chen’s confused expression, and therefore he missed completely the apparently sad look on his face as they drove him away. Kyungsoo whispered that to him later in the night, after he tried vainly to get Tao away from the wall flowers and dance with his ‘date’ at least once. Tao refused to budge, and Kyungsoo ended up occupying Sehun for most of the night.

It was a poetic moment two months later when the two announced they were together, and Tao was let off the hook for being the crappiest date ever. 

It was probably a coincidence but Tao saw less and less of Chen that winter. Part of the reason was that Chen's family went on a long holiday vacation, but even after they came back Chen didn't talk to him as much. Months went by with barely a sighting between them (since Tao was still actively trying to avoid and forget about him) but at least before Chen had sought him out every now and then. At least that was how it appeared to Tao, and the lack of contact between them was starting to unnerve him. Even if it’s what he wanted. Tao wanted to see him less, right?

He ran into Minseok one day at the grocery store where the elder was shopping, and Tao was trailing lazily after his mother who’d gotten several aisles ahead.

“Tao, how’s it going?” Minseok said to him after they nearly collided around the frozen veggies. Tao realized belatedly that the reason he hadn’t seen him was because Tao was already half a foot taller. Even Minseok looked surprised to have to look up to meet his eyes.

“Fine. Good. You?” He answered carelessly.

“Good too. Haven’t seen you around at Chen’s lately,” Minseok said.

Tao crinkled his lips and tried to act natural. “Yeah, I’ve been busy.”

Minseok smiled knowingly, almost a smirk, and Tao had no idea why. “Too busy, huh? Well you should make some time. I think Chen misses you.”

“Does he?” Tao didn’t really believe it.

“Yeah,” said Minseok airily. It didn’t do anything to assure Tao of his suggestion though. “Anyways, I hear you have a boyfriend now? How’s that going?”

Minseok could have pushed him over with a feather, Tao was so stunned. “What? Boyfriend? Me? Uhmm… no, actually.”

Minseok looked shocked as well. “You don’t? But I thought Chen said—that guy you went to the dance with, or something?”

“That was Kyungsoo’s date,” said Tao. He may have messed with the chronology, but it was practically true then anyways.

Minseok’s mouth formed a perfect little ‘o’ and he nodded to himself, absorbing in the fact while Tao realized he had completely lost sight of his mom, and the last thing he wanted to do was to be left alone at the grocery store like the last time (ten years ago) when she’d forgotten Tao had come with her.

He didn’t consider the implications that Chen thought he was dating all this time until much, much later in the day. But then what good were such thoughts anyways when it didn’t matter. He was still too young for Chen, and always would be.

“Mom, how many years apart were grandma and grandpa again?” he asked her later that night.

“Ten years, I think. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. Just curious.” Those were the olden days then anyways. People did things differently in the olden days. 

Tao’s resolve to be unconcerned with Chen lasted until the first day of high school, when for the first time in three years, he was going to attend the same school as his neighbor. It felt very much like the beginning of 6^th grade, the last time they went together, and Chen was an upper classmen and Tao just a baby in comparison, and hundreds upon hundreds of students seemed to flow between them, forever separating him off from the object of his affections.

Other people had crushes and moved on. Kyungsoo had had numerous girl and boy crushes before he started dating Sehun, but how come it was just Tao who never moved on? Was it because they were forever connected by the neighbors thing? Or was Tao really just that dense, or that stubborn?

He didn’t dare ask if he could ride with Chen to school. The senior – Tao had to repeat that a few times: Chen was a senior, and Tao a mere freshman – drove himself to school now, while Tao still had to walk. He was too much of a chicken to attempt to change the status quo, even though Kyungsoo chided him on being stupid so much of the time.

He hadn’t seen Chen for most of the summer – again, their family had been gone for most of it, and Chen had had a summer job somewhere else. They met formerly for the first time in months in the cafeteria during the second week of school.

“Hi. Wow,” Chen said, looking up at Tao, stunned and amused and, was Tao reading the emotion correctly, but did Chen look impressed?

“Wow, what?” Tao said lamely.

“You grew!”

“Oh, yeah I did.”

He had to smile vaguely, because yes he was a hottie. He’d double-checked his reflection in the mirror several times that morning, and he knew he looked good. Hardly like a freshman with his height. He flattered himself that he could probably pass for a sophomore at least, and perhaps a junior if one squinted just right.

“You could be a senior, you’re so tall now,” said Chen, and Tao’s heart soared.

In his dreams at night (the ones he made up right before sleep took over actually), Tao drafted a master plan. He had one year to impress Chen with his looks and his maturity and his killer personality before the elder went off to college. Then Tao would have three years to finish his plan. Chen would probably move away, and Tao wouldn’t see him except at holidays, and each time he’d look more and more impressive, and older. Finally, Chen would come home for the summer before his senior year, and that’s when Tao would be ready to go off to some fabulous university of his own, preferably the same as Chen’s, and he would be eighteen and legal and finally he'd confess. Chen would be so taken with him that he’d similarly confess, and all would be right in the world.

Tao put himself to sleep each night around cheesy love lines: ‘I’ve always loved you, Tao. I was just waiting for you for grow up and want me too. Kiss me, Tao. Kiss me like it’s the last time!’

“Hey, Tao,” said a moody Kyungsoo one day during lunch. “Quit your daydreaming. It’s pathetic.”

“Oh, sorry.” Tao snapped back rather quickly. He glanced around at the nearby tables to verify that no one else had seen him or was creeped out by the way Tao’s eyes glazed over from time to time. Unfortunately, he couldn’t always contain his fantasies to the evening hours. At least Chen hadn’t caught him like this yet. The senior, Tao knew, sat on the other side of the cafeteria from where Tao and Kyungsoo usually sat.

Speaking of the seniors, a few minutes later Kyungsoo snorted and Tao followed his gaze to the table where Chen and his ‘boyfriends’ sat. Something unnerving was going on. Chen was obviously in the middle of blushing at something while his friends laughed at him, and both Luhan and Minseok were taking turns looking over in Tao’s direction. The eldest of them met his glance once and doubled over in glee for a moment while Chen buried his head further into the table.

“Holy…”

Kyungsoo couldn’t finish his phrase.

“What?” Tao asked.

Kyungsoo’s eyes glowed like he’d just discovered some new, hidden treasure, his gaze never faltering from the seniors, to Tao, back to the seniors, and back to Tao. He scoffed and choked on his next drink, and then cackled to himself while shaking his head.

“What?” Tao demanded a little louder. “What is it? Why are you doing that?”

Only Kyungsoo continued to snicker, and Tao was starting to lose patience in his friend.

“Tao, you’re not still planning out your ‘Freshman plus 3 Year Plan’, are you?”

Something curdled pitifully in the pit of Tao’s stomach. “No,” he denied steadfastly.

“Yeah right, I know you are, so don’t try to deny it.”

Tao didn’t say anything.

“I’m just saying,” he continued. “Why do you have to wait? Why not implement it now? Just walk over there right now and confess to Chen and see what happens.”

“You want to see me miserable and embarrassed for the rest of my life, is that it?” Tao replied lamely.

Kyungsoo’s eyes twinkled. “I’m just saying… why wait? I think the results you’d get would be rather interesting…”

Interesting, Tao scoffed to himself. Interesting, meaning the worst thing he could possibly do right now—

“Tao, seriously. I think he likes you.”

“What?!?” Tao screeched.

“I’m almost positive he does.  Have you seen the way he’s been looking at you for the past few weeks?”

“No, he doesn’t. He can’t possibly.” Tao was in the mood to refute everything. Too much of his life plans hung on the fact that he wasn’t ready yet to face true love. Older, he needed to be older first. There was no way Kyungsoo was right. 

The day of reckoning came far too soon for Tao. Barely a month after Kyungsoo’s observations lies in the cafeteria, Tao wasn’t anywhere close to initiating his goal of ‘make myself appear awesome’ before Chen cornered him one day when Tao came home from school.

Chen was unusually friendly today, and also a bit fidgety, Tao noticed. The weirdest thing is that Chen seemed to want to come into Tao’s home, instead of the other way around. Tao lead him through the kitchen, offered him a coke, and sat down on a stool to observe the elder.

“So, how’s life being a senior?” Tao asked demurely, because he didn’t know what else to talk about so suddenly.

“It’s fine.” Chen also took a seat opposite from Tao. They lazily observed each other across the counter separating kitchen from den.

“It has to be better than just fine,” Tao said, “since you’re almost done with high school. I still have a long ways to go…”

Chen laughed at him. “What’s the rush? High school is easy, I’ve heard, compared to college. You should enjoy being young anyways. Senior year is stressful.”

“No, I just want to be older already.” School life aside, Tao knew what he wanted. He didn’t think Chen understood though.

“What’s so great about being older?”

“Well really I just wish I was around your age.”

Chen sipped his soda, and then swallowed too heavily for the amount of liquid he’d drunk. “What’s so great about being three years older than you already are? Why not five or ten or twenty?”

“No, I just want to be your age. Then we could have been better friends.”

To hell with master plans. Something had gotten into Tao and possessed his spirit, and Tao rather liked the heady sensation coursing through him. He innocently guzzled his drink and stared out the window – coincidentally one of the five windows in his home that was perfect for stalking the house next door. 

Chen looked confused. “Aren’t we friends now though?”

“Yes, but I’ve always been too young for you, right? I mean I’m not exactly your best friend even though we’ve been neighbors for years, and I’ve known you at least as long as if not longer than your current friends.”

“Who said anything about age? We just happened to have to go to different schools most of this time.”

“Still…” Tao pouted. He wasn’t really thinking anymore, preferring to just let the conversation take its course.

“So you want to be my best friend?” Chen leaned back and put his arms behind his head, stretching while he pretended to consider the idea.

“No.”

“No?!” Chen looked put out. He brought his arms back and stared at Tao, now trying to figure out the boy across from him with an expression that was half panic half confusion. “Well, why not? You don’t want to be friends anymore? Okay that’s fine,” he said with a look that said it wasn’t fine. “Sure, because I guess you’ve got other friends your age and—“

“I want to be your boyfriend.”

“—You what?” Chen almost didn’t miss a beat.

“Boyfriend,” Tao repeated, and his eyes were earnest this time, calm and pleading and completely focused on the older boy’s stunned expression. Chen looked shocked more than irritated, curious more than disgusted, and all that along with Chen’s sudden silence Tao took to be a good sign. “I like you, Chen.”

“For how long?”

“A long time?”

“How long is a long time?”

“Since before I knew what it was even? W-what about you?”

Chen gulped. “What about me?”

“Is there a chance…?” Before Chen could say anything else, Tao quickly went on. “I know I’m three years younger, and I always will be, and I’m a freshman and you’re a senior, and you’re going to go off to college next year and I probably won’t see you, so that’s why I’m saying this now. Before you go away. But it’s only three years, and I know that seems like a lot now, but people, and by people I mean Kyungsoo, say that the older people get the gap between their ages shrinks somehow so maybe in a few years three years won’t seem like such a big deal anymore and anyways I… I like you.”

He finished his monologue to a heavy silence but still Chen hadn’t looked away; hadn’t pelted out of the room like Tao halfway expected him to do. He wouldn’t speak though. If only he would speak.

Tao cleared his throat, finally starting to feel that hint of embarrassment that was previously lacking. “Do you… like me?”

Moment of truth, and if Kyungsoo had it wrong this time, Tao was done with the guy once and for all. He’d eat alone in the cafeteria for the next four years if he had to and suffer in silence, only because he knew that if Chen rejected him here, his life wouldn’t mean anything.

But then Chen’s head was moving, slowly, and for the first couple seconds Tao was so on edge he couldn’t decipher if the motion was up and down or side to side or going around in circles around his neck, because this motion was going to determine everything!

Chen nodded, and Tao watched how his eyes never lost their focus, and how his head bobbed slowly down and then up.

Yes, came the confirmation, and Tao’s heart thudded wondrously.

“You mean, you like me?” Tao had to confirm it in words.

“Yes.”

“For how long?” Now Tao was the interrogator.

Chen smiled. “Too long to say without sounding like an idiot.”

“So you want to date me?” Tao’s throat was parched, and his hands twitched and the drink in his hands was suddenly not important and completely in the way.

“I don’t know, do you want to date me?”

“Yes.” He knew his answer came too quickly, but time was their enemy for now and the less time they took to get this out of the way, the better it would be, right?

Chen smiled even wider, and slid his own drink out of the way. One of his hands inched across the countertop and did the same with Tao’s drink until their way was clear.  Tentatively his fingers found Tao’s and tangled their way into a light grip.

“Okay then.”

The seniors’ lunch table was considerably fuller after that day, now with the addition of the three newer freshman students. Kyungsoo and Sehun were oddly above any acts of PDA during school hours, but they sat side by side every day, squashed around the small round table and Sehun complained heavily how he couldn’t wait for the senior couple to leave one day so there’d be more room for them to spread out. Luhan and Minseok heard his complaints and steadfastly ignored him.

“Whatever will Tao do though when all of his friends and his boyfriend are gone though?” Luhan asked jokingly. He asked this nearly every week though and the age-challenged couple was well used to it.  

Tao had just set his tray down and hopped onto his chair. Chen placed his tray down as well but instead of sitting he looped his arms around Tao’s neck and pressed his cheek to his boyfriend’s ear while pinching the other.

“Tao will survive. After all I’m not moving away for college, and we’ll still be neighbors. Maybe I’ll even drop by during lunch time here to see if he’s behaving himself properly!”

Tao flinched away from his teasing and ear-grabbing, and Chen punished him by grabbing his chin. He forced his face to the side and met his lips with a lingering kiss that made the others around the table squeal in disgust.

“Hey, quit it. That’s enough!” Kyungsoo cried, muttering, “I shouldn’t ever have brought you two together.”

“Cradle robber,” Minseok choked under his breath.

Luhan elbowed him cruelly in the ribs. “You’re one to talk. Didn’t you say you thought Kyungsoo was super cute when you first saw him?”

Minseok blushed scarlet, and swore violently, hitting Luhan over the head. Meanwhile Kyungsoo turned pale white, and Sehun grew pissed.

“Hands and eyes to yourself, please,” Sehun growled.

“Says the guy who wanted to date Tao but couldn’t land him,” Chen taunted, and Sehun turned silent. Kyungsoo snickered.

Minseok, finally recovered from his embarrassment, said, “Yeah, poor Chen thought you and Tao were dating for months. Good thing Kyungsoo took over and cleared the field.”

“To be fair,” Luhan interjected, “every one of us agreed that Kyungsoo was a little cute.”

Kyungsoo had to hold back his boyfriend until the laughs around the table ceased.

“Did I mention that Kyungsoo pelted me with a rock back in grade school?” Tao mentioned suddenly.

Chen looked up as if suddenly remembering something. “Oh yeah! Kyungsoo, I guess I never apologized, but sorry for beating you up and then getting you expelled for that back then.” He smiled winningly, and Sehun had to be dragged away to keep him from hitting back.

Tao meanwhile beamed, and beneath the table entwined his hand with Chen’s, and Tao was very much the happiest one here because he didn’t wait to confess. Or perhaps Chen was the happiest one, but they never could resolve which was which, and that was one argument they were happy to always have.

7,226 words

 [x]

So... this was supposed to be a cute, little, short oneshot and it grew into this monster and took me days, but OH WELL. Taochen deserve it. 

For those of you who found this fic on its own, Three Years to Wait is kind of a spin-off to another Kaisoo fic where Kyungsoo is an Exo-M fic writer and this story was a request. So, imagine Kyungsoo wrote it, and wrote himself into the story, and now has to deal with a jealous, creeped-out Jongin who - when he reads this and realizes Kyungsoo not only wrote himself in as a character, but wrote Sehun as his in-story boyfriend - is more than a little put-out and totally confused. 

Sound weird? Well, just read this then: Write Me Into Your Fiction, Hyung and you'll see this story get mentioned in more detail in the next chapter (chap 3) I write.

And thanks again to aLiaLovella for the Taochen prompt! I hope I (or Kyungsoo hehe) did it justice! :O Sorry for the cheesy ending. Wait, why should I have to apologize. I take that back. I don't apologize for the cheesy ending hehehee

<3 Rosie