goddamn

@rvxleo

teddy wasn’t oblivious, contrary to what his members sometimes teased him for. he knew that a certain leo was meeting up with a certain ex-member of traxx and he had been determined to get to the bottom of it. what had started as feigning being out to hear their conversations to seeing the odd notification from time to time teddy was sure they were in the fine line between fuck buddies and boyfriends.

“how’s your traxx friend?” teddy asked leo one day when it was just the two of them at the crown dorm, “i saw the dispatch article and wondered if he was okay.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he sighed, his head hitting the back of the chair behind him uselessly, “he didn’t want to tell me.” Leo wasn’t surprised that Teddy asked about it, he had watched him try to come off as disinterested whenever Jaeyeon texted him or whenever he was within earshot of the two of them. Besides, all the information Teddy had already got out of Leo for his bang book technically needed updating now. Leo wouldn’t have blamed Teddy for asking even if it were for that. He shook his head. 

“I dunno if you can call him my ‘traxx friend’ anymore, Teddy.” But at least I can definitely tell you that the ‘traxx’ part didn’t work out, Leo thought. He still had no idea what to call whatever he and Jaeyeon had. It was easier when Leo didn’t have any emotions, he was coming to realize even more. Leo paused, looking back over at the other boy. “He seems to be doing okay, though. For the most part.”

Jaeyeon had come to enjoy spending time with Leo and not only because of the activities the two partook in as the night drew on. Meetings with him were a constant, something Jaeyeon didn’t have much of in his life at the moment and he was grateful for that. Going to meet him after the Dispatch article had dropped was going to be hard and, as he had expected, it was. He had to talk about something that broke him and explain it; if he was serious about Leo like he wanted to be, he couldn’t just ignore a large portion of his adult life like he constantly kept on doing.

He had been glad that Leo hadn’t brought it up; he was able to be on his phone and ignore that fact for as long as possible. He knew it’d be an inevitable topic but the longer they went without discussing it the better. Leo’s voice caused Jaeyeon to flinch, startled because he was too deep in his game to even consider someone else talking to him. He looked over at Leo and, after a long pause, shrugged. “I thought maybe if I didn’t talk about what happened I could pretend it didn’t and that I could convince myself that I was on a hiatus.”

Leo glanced away from Jaeyeon once the other boy finally replied to his question, his gaze drifting across the ceiling as Jaeyeon’s words repeated themselves in his ears as soon as he heard them. The explanation made sense to Leo–there were already plenty of things from the past that he would prefer never to bring up again, to anyone–but it still didn’t sit very well with him. But knowing that he was still doing practically the same thing, even if it was about reasons that seemed to be polar opposites, just made his heart sink a little lower in his chest. He didn’t blame Jaeyeon in any way from keeping it from him, he wasn’t even upset about that. Leo just also knew in the back of his mind that he was one of Jaeyeon’s distractions from it. 

“I, uh,” Leo started to reply, before his weak train of thought already abandoning him. He sighed, pulling his eyes away from the ceiling and looking back to Jaeyeon. Leo paused again, unsure of exactly what to say to him. He had wanted to say something, that’s why he brought it up in the first place, but part of that was out of some feeling of guilt from knowing about Jaeyeon having left TRAXX, and Jaeyeon not having decided he wanted to him to know. Maybe it would’ve just been easier, even if just on Leo’s thoughts, if they both kept fucking instead of talking and leaving everything left unsaid between them. But the silence wasn’t very easily bearable, and Leo just wanted to speak to Jaeyeon about everything, he just didn’t know how to. “I’m sorry, about TRAXX,” he finally said, “I dunno exactly how much it meant to you, but it seemed like a big part of your life, at least.” 

“If Empire and Reign are sibling groups, and Dynasty and Majesty are sibling groups, does that make Heirs Crown’s sibling group or Legacy’s? Because either way, I have seven brothers, and that’s too many.” @rvxleo

“Ours. We’re better than Legacy anyway, I’d rather have us as a sibling group than them.” Leo laughed, “I guess you could just chose whichever group is siblings with Heirs and just start telling people that we’ve always been that way. I doubt you want it to be both, seven brothers would be still be better then fourteen.”

“they should have a stage that’s just us brutally murdering legacy as revenge for beating us in that reality show.” @rvteddy @rvxleo

“Hold on... what kind of murder though?”

“snake spelled out, and then i’d get a sleeve of an actual snake.”

“On the bright side, I doubt you could ever get kicked out of Alpha after that.”

“i gotta admit, i’ve never even had a klondike bar.”

“Neither have I, so I guess neither of us have done shit for a klondike bar before.”

“that too– you gotta answer! i’m better than him, right?”

“He’s a better rapper, but he’s a better rapper than all of us anyway,” Leo laughed, knowing that the last part really only applied to himself. “I dunno with the first question, I guess we’d have to see which one of you would feel the least bad about actually stealing candy from a baby and go from there.”

“you’d make krista sad she’s a nice girl do you really wanna make her sad?”

“That’s why I didn’t say it. That and it’s just not funny. So I guess I wouldn’t even make a shitty joke for a Klondike bar.”

“as a human. duh.”

“Shit, I just thought you were going to say in Crown. That’d be way easier to answer.” 

Another night with every other member out for some reason or another meant another night spending time with Jaeyeon, and that seemed to already having become a pattern without either of them having to say it outright. But unlike most times that had come before where the only thing that was unspoken between them was how long it would take once they were together until their clothes wound up scattered across the floor, this time Leo finally knew why Jaeyeon had always avoided any conversation about TRAXX promotions, and it wasn’t because Jaeyeon had finally felt comfortable enough to tell him why. 

The only reason he knew that Jaeyeon wasn’t even in TRAXX anymore was because of a Dispatch article about Spotlight’s announcement, and even then, neither of them had addressed that article either. And no matter what label Jaeyeon or Leo would put on whatever was going on between them, Leo still couldn’t help but feel shitty over how the only reason he knew about what could be going on in Jaeyeon’s life was because of a Dispatch article. Leo looked up from his place next to him on the couch of his dorm. He didn’t want to put Jaeyeon on the spot, but he also couldn’t keep trying to push it out of his mind. “Hey...” he started, his voice soft as he glanced over at Jaeyeon, “why didn’t you tell me? About TRAXX, I mean.”

“true. i should get that done regardless.”

“Would you try to get an actual snake on your forehead, or are you going to let commenters literally spell it out for you?”

@rvxleo

“no seriously…what would you do for a klondike bar. i need to know for science.”

“.... I was about to say ‘Minhyeok’ as a joke, but I don’t even like ice cream that much.”

“okay, but between me and donghyun, i’m way better right?”

“As a roommate? I wouldn’t know, I’ve only ever roomed with him.”

feeling his cheeks redden, jaeyeon adverted his gaze slightly, “i’m trying to be sneaky - i don’t want someone hearing us. are you that shameless?” jaeyeon rolled his eyes a little as he let himself be dragged closer, “aw how romantic. i’ll recite shakespeare.”

“I don’t think that’s possible, we’re the only ones here,” he assured him softly, before the wry smile returned to his face. “Should I be?” Leo replied as he leaned in to kiss the other boy, only pulling away to reply to his comment. “Should I bring roses next time, then? Just so you could pull the petals off one by one?”

“fine,” jaeyeon said, raising an eyebrow, “uh, kiss me?”

Leo couldn’t help but chuckle softly at his question, having expected something a little less tame, to put it one way. “Damn, I didn’t realize you were so crazy, Jaeyeon,” Leo teased as he drew the other boy closer to him. “Should I go to your dorm next time and throw rocks at your window?”