Lovesick // TOMORROW X TOGETHER [TaeBin / SooKai]

Chapter 7 - Suddenly, my heart beats twice as much

Song Recommendation for this Chapter: "Scrawny" by Wallows

It was the end of the school day and Taehyun and Soobin made their way to Soobin's house. It was a calm walk with small conversations about different things, but none of them even addressed the fight during lunch break even once. Between them, it felt as if the fight never happened, despite the still slightly hurting wounds on Soobin's left palm and right cheekbone.

Usually, Taehyun would hold Soobin's left hand when walking him home. But today he held his right hand. Soobin thought he must have done it to not hurt him more as he already did get hurt. He blushed at the thought, but quickly shaked the feeling away because he didn't want his hands to start sweating, especially as he wasn't sure if that was really the reason Taehyun held Soobin's right hand today.

"Today, I got another three letters in my locker." Taehyun spoke up without sounding as if he was flattered by the many love confessions he is getting. Soobin turned his head to face Taehyun, having to look down a little to see into his eyes.

"And did you throw them away again?" Taehyun hummed in affirmation. Soobin frowned a little at that response.

"Why are you telling me that?"

"I thought you wanted to know." Taehyun shrugged his shoulders with a relaxed gesture.

"I never said I wanted to."

"Are you jealous?" Taehyun tilted his head up to Soobin and smiled at him with a mischievous emphasis. Soobin lifted his brows in bewilderment.

"No!" He exclaimed exaggeratedly.

But it was true. He didn't feel jealous when seeing all those letters fall out of Taehyun's locker or when random girls, and nowadays even boys, come up to him during lunch break asking him if Taehyun was single. After the awkward conversation with Kim Sohee, practically everyone knew that Taehyun wasn't straight. It wasn't very clear if he was bisexual or only into boys. And apart from the few homophobes like Lee Suho, no one really had much of a problem with it, especially when there were already other popular people like Choi Yeonjun who had come out openly. So he was still one of the popular boys everyone wanted to talk to after all.

But one thing that probably everyone forgot about or didn't bother to mention was that Taehyun wasn't single. Even now Soobin was a literal outsider, even though Taehyun was probably the most popular student in school right now. Soobin didn't expect himself to become one of the cool kids right away as well but he still hoped that there would be some acknowledgment of him being the boyfriend of the Kang Taehyun. The literal erasure of his whole status felt like a hate crime.

"Don't worry, I will never get enough of saying that you are my boyfriend." Taehyun stated and gently squeezed Soobin's right hand for reassurance. Soobin smiled to himself sweetly.

At least someone acknowledged him.

Soobin's house was already in sight and there weren't many steps left until Taehyun and Soobin would arrive at the front yard of his home.

It was when Soobin saw a tall person leaning against the fence of the neighbor's front garden, that led Soobin to stop in his tracks. With one leg casually bent towards the fence for support, Kai stood there with his face tilted downwards observing his skateboard which he was twirling around in his hands. His skateboard was worn out and plastered with various stickers of all kinds of sizes. Soobin didn't know that he could skateboard.

Soobin had to gulp at the sight of his appearance, wondering if Kai grew taller during the summer break. While Soobin digested Kai's existence, Taehyun called out Kai's name, resulting in the taller one to look up with a big smile on his face.