since seventeen | rirae ✔

06

"I just don't get it. He thinks I'm in love with Gyuvin. Like literally Gyuvin, out of everyone else." Ricky ranted.

Hao and Matthew looked at each other for a split second before looking at the phone's screen again, where they were facetiming Ricky and hearing about his most recent problem.

"It's not my fault. Ricky agreed to my plan and the whole purpose was to make Taerae hyung jealous. And we succeeded in that." Gyuvin interrupted his friend's rant and blurted out his words with a little saltiness.

"Are you in love with Taerae?" Hao asked after a while. Ricky never made it clear to them if he liked Taerae or not. He ranted about how Taerae was spending less time with him and all but never confirmed about his feelings.

"Of course I am! If not, then why would I be so bothered about it?"

And that's how Taerae was confronted by his only two friends after Ricky, with the same question.

"Do you like Ricky?"

"What?" Taerae's first instinct was looking at them with ridicule written all over his face.

"You heard it right."

"Of course not!" Taerae spitted out, still cringing how his friends were suddenly asking something like this. "Ricky's my brother. Why the hell would I ever like him?"

"Not biological." Matthew corrected him. "He's not even your step brother or something. He's like not related to you at all." He said while munching on a bag of chips that Hanbin bought for him last time.

"But I always saw him as a brother." Taerae uttered, voice a lot more neutral than before.

"That can change like anytime, honey." Hao stated in a sing-song voice. "You should think about it deeply because getting jealous over Gyuvin isn't really a brotherly thing, Taerae-ya." The mentioned boy shook his head. "I'm not jealous. I don't want Gyuvin to ever misunderstand his boyfriend because of me. That's why I'm keeping some distant with Ricky."

"How are you so sure that they're boyfriends?" Hao asked, raising one of his eyebrows.

Taerae opened his mouth to speak but no word seemed to come out. What was his reasoning? He put his lips in a straight line and blinked a couole of times. Hao's intent gaze was still on him. Taerae sighed and ended up saying, "They just seem like it."

Matthew put his snacks away and straightened himself. He crossed his arms around his chest, wearing an oversized hoodie. "Bullshit. Hanbin hyung asked me about you and Ricky before because he thought you two 'seemed' like a couple. But you actually aren't which applies the same for Gyuvin and Ricky." The way the bangs covered his face and he spoke really made Matthew to seem like a kid. And Hao failed to keep his composure as he broke in a adoring laughter.

"Just take your time to figure out. We're not forcing you into liking him. We want you to realize your own feelings." Hao casually spoke.

"But I really don't like him in that way." Taerae fiddled with his fingers and looked down. Matthew understood that his friend was getting sad at the topic. So like the amazing friend he was, he clapped his hands to talk about something else.

It certainly worked because after a minute or two, Taerae participated normally in their conversation.