101 Ways to Pretend│Taegyu

EPILOGUE

They say you miss a person most in the final moments before you see them again.

Taehyun could vouch for that. As time slowed to a drip of honey and morning sunlight illuminated the speckles of dust through the airport windows, he truly wondered if time could be any more of an enemy than it was at that moment. He heard the roll of the wheels against the marble tiles, an onslaught of people coming through the gates- presumably after a new flight landed- but still caught sight of no familiar face despite having waited for what seemed like ages.

It was funny really, how those months missing him all boiled down into a few painstaking minutes where his heart ached in the most unbearably loving way, knowing he would be in the arms of the other again.

Beomgyu had gone abroad to film the end of his trilogy of hit movies- the grand finale with an all-star cast aiding him, after much careful consideration knowing that he would not be back for half a year or so, ultimately having to leave Taehyun behind. The former anchor had been more than willing to go with him, but with his new sparkling job as the director of the news agency he had once been an anchor at, a job he so desperately clawed his way up to get, he couldn't afford to travel the world with Beomgyu without losing the stability of it all.

That's what Taehyun loved about their relationship. It was never one or the other. With each other, they could have it all and still know that they would go back to each other at the end of the day. It was a comfort like no other feeling, security that no one could break.

His patience, however, was wearing thin. He was pretty sure he had checked his watch more than humanly possible in the last ten minutes waiting for Beomgyu. Unless he got mugged immediately after landing, it shouldn't have taken more than the exact time Taehyun calculated for him to get through everything.

As his impatience began to turn into worry pooling in his stomach, he felt the room shift in the same way it did when there was the presence of a particular person. He didn't even have to look up to know that the one he had been waiting for had arrived- but he did anyway, and he was sure the whole airport would've fainted at the sight of that million-dollar smile.

His surroundings whizzed past him and before he knew it he was running, his strides rivalling those of track stars as he sprinted into Beomgyu's arms, nearly toppling the actor over. It felt like every ache in his body soothing, every knot in his muscles loosening as he wrapped his arms around the elder as tight as he possibly could without crushing his airways. People were staring, either at the sheer force of Taehyun's hug or at the celebrity standing there in the plain open, but he didn't care.

Beomgyu let out a light chuckle after a few seconds and pulled away, both of them admiring each other as if they were made of every constellation in space. Breathless and flushed, Taehyun had never felt happier (though he felt that way every single time he saw him). They looked odd; Beomgyu clad up in a puffer jacket, scarf and beanie (obvious that he had flown in from the coldest parts of Russia), and Taehyun in a pair of jeans and the thinnest t-shirt he could find to combat the heat of Seoul's summer. They both had stepped out of completely different worlds and here they were, standing next to each other like a pair of lovestruck fools.

"What took you so long?" he asked after they exchanged smiles, hands still lingering at each other's sides. There was no need for proper greetings because both of them always fell into a rhythm reserved just for them whenever they saw each other- no matter how seldom or often it was.

"I was... in the bathroom?" He looked away, feigning ignorance. For an Academy Award nominee, Beomgyu was a horrible liar when it came to Taehyun. Dropping his face into a dead serious, no-nonsense look was all it took for Taehyun to make the actor slip up.