no regrets 。taekai 。

xiv

before the chinese food could arrive, taemin fished out some pain relief patches out of his luggage and made jongin tilt his neck all the way down. the younger was sure taemin was trying to get back at him for making him bump his head on the bus previously.

"ah- AH, wait- jeez. why are you being rough with my poor neck." jongin rubbed his fingers around the skin on his nape that had now a soft adhesive stuck on.

"shut up, you'll thank me in ten hours when you wake up with no more pain in your neck." taemin shook his head and as if on cue the phone in their room rang to let them know their food had arrived and taemin was a sweetheart to go all the way down to the reception to get the food as jongin sat down lethargically not moving one limb.

"ta-da!" taemin shook the plastic bag on his hand and placed it on the coffee table in front of jongin, seating himself on the end of the latter's futon.

they took soundly slurps of their noodles before moving on to drinking tea and eating dumplings as a digestive.

"hey, i don't know if you heard but uh... baekhyun and sehun are back im seoul." taemin tried to start a conversation after a long time of them just looking at eachother a sipping on their teas.

"yeah, i saw them." jongin quietly said, staring at his tea as if it was the most interesting thing ever.

"so, lee soo man signed them back in as active group members. i accidentally saw it in one secretary's database." taemin scratched his nose before getting one dumpling and plopping it into his mouth.

now this was news to jongin, he didn't know how to react and even less what to answer, if sehun and baekhyun were signed back in the group's database as active members it would probably mean they were coming back to promote with exo. jongin's head was spinning.

after a few moments of silence and taemin's awkward little adjustments of his legs he finally had the courage to speak up.

"i'm sorry, i shouldn't have said anything." taemin looked down at his fingers.

taemin's soft tone immediately brought jongin out of his trance and he furrowed his brows at taemin.

"there's nothing to be sorry for." he smiled reassuringly, "it's just, very recent." even though it really wasn't.

"not really, is it?" jongin chuckled at the irony of taemin repeating what he was thinking. "mind if i ask what exactly happened? i heard some stuff from jongdae but he said you were the most affected by it, since you sehun and baekhyun- specially you and sehun were inseparable." taemin gave jongin one of those smiles that made jongin feel like he was talking to his mom.

"i guess it would be good if i tell someone my perspective, so i could stop sulking by myself." jongin giggled.

he felt pathetic.

。。。

"i didn't know they were dating and i felt betrayed i guess. sehun had told junmyeon that him and baekhyun were dating a week before they announced that they were leaving." jongin chuckled. the dumplings had already ended half a hour ago, they had resorted to drinking some beer and soju they found in the fridge.

"i know it sounds kind of selfish but i always felt that sehun would go to me first if something like this ever happened. how could i not know my best friend liked boys?" jongin sighed and leaned his head back onto the sofa taemin was currently sprawled on, lazily sipping his bottle of soju.

"i know how you might've felt but they might've felt worse. maybe they only told junmyeon in advance since he's the leader." taemin said, sleepiness seeping through every word, "you should talk to him in private when they come back, maybe sehun will tell you his point of view."

jongin wanted to be stubborn and argue, tell taemin that he wouldn't be the one to seek out sehun and that if the latter wanted to talk to jongin in private he'd have to tell him that, not the other way around.

he wanted to but he could already feel his eyes giving up on trying to stay open so he simply put his bottle down next to the futon and looked back at taemin.

the boy was in the same state as jongin, not sober and in desperate need of sleep.

"give me your bottle, we should sleep." jongin lifted his arm slightly, motioning towards taemin's empty bottle that he gripped so tightly.

taemin gave his bottle to jongin and the bottle found his place next to jongin's on the floor.

"we really should." is the last thing jongin heard before completely blacking out in a sitting position.