Tae relaxed a little bit more. They didn't hate him. He had been so worried that they would turn their backs on him if they knew who he had wanted to be. Even Haneul had apologized. That was not something he had expected.

When they all promised to have his back, Tae found himself smiling a bit. "Thanks, hyungs, that means a lot." He said. It really did. It felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his chest, like he could finally breathe.

Ju-kan patted Tae on the back and raised a hand to Tae's head to ruffle his hair. But he thought better of it, and patted his head gently instead. "We should've done this ages ago," he said gruffly. "What kind of pizza do you want, Tae? Today, you get to choose."

Lain was glad, too. Perhaps they not only understood Tae better, but would be able relate to each other better too. At least it felt that way. To Lain, they seemed more united than they had ever been before.

"I think we'd all like to be ourselves. Doesn't everyone?" he pondered aloud. People wanted to be themselves, but they could only do that if it felt safe.

Ju-Kan almost ruffled his hair. Tae really hoped he didn't. Then, instead, he patted his head too. Even that made Tae smile a little more. Ju-Kan had already started to treat him like he wasn't a kid anymore.

"Thanks, hyung." Then Ju-kan said that he could choose the pizza they ate today. "Um, just cheese." He didn't really like pepperoni. He usually picked it off and left it on his plate if they got a pepperoni pizza.

"You can't go wrong with just cheese," said Ju-kan, cheesily.

He dialed to do the ordering, and Haneul asked them what they should watch once the pizza came. Lain couldn't really think of anything in particular, and asked Tae what he wanted to watch.

They also decided that they'd all have a share of Haneul's ice cream after the pizza. Haneul was feeling generous.

And Lain was feeling optimistic. Pizza and ice cream were the ultimate comfort food and he was also looking forward to visiting the bookstore-cum-lending-library.

Tae rolled his eyes at Ju-kan's terrible joke. However, he was glad that things were going back to normal. Well, a new kind of normal. One where he wasn't so worried about expectations.

Then they asked him to pick what they watched. He chose a comedy that was one of the first movies he'd watched when he got here. It was a comfort movie for him now. One that he didn't watch all too often. However, he felt like a movie was appropriate with pizza.

They all settled down on the couch to watch the movie, except for Lain who sat on the floor and leaned back on Ju-kan's legs.

"You're like a cat," said Ju-kan, playing with Lain's hair.

"Sure," said Lain.

The pizza was great, warm burrata cheese and marinara sauce with basil, and nothing else. This was the pizza place they always ordered from, it was a tried and true favourite.

The movie was funny and feel-good. Lain smiled and laughed out loud at times. He enjoyed it when a witty moment in the movie made them all laugh together. He felt that new sense of unity with his fellow members at those moments.

Partway through Haneul burped loudly and that made them all laugh too.

When they were done, Lain collected the pizza boxes and stepped out to put them in the garbage. After he was back inside he approached Tae.

"We can spend the afternoon at the bookstore," he said. "There's lots to browse and comfy seating, so we can read there for as long as we like and then borrow some more reads to bring home. I'll take my backpack with me to carry the books in. Meet me at the front door when you're ready?"

Tae settled on the couch in between Ju-kan and Haneul. For the first time in a long time, Tae felt truly comfortable there. The pizza had definitely been the right choice. Not as good as the pizza he'd had growing up, but it was his favorite here. He loved laughing with his bandmates. It felt like too long since they had genuinely had some fun together.

He wished the moment could last forever. He found himself laughing and rolling his eyes when Haneul burped. The movie was over way too soon. Then Lain mentioned the library again. He almost forgot they had planned to do that. He nodded a bit.

"Yeah, hyung, I'm almost ready." He said, smiling a bit. An afternoon out would be nice. He got up and went to the bathroom, washing up again quickly. Then he went to the door and put on his shoes on. "I'm ready." He said, looking up at Lain.

Lain rinsed his mouth with some mouthwash, put his wallet in the inner pocket of his jacket, shouldered his backpack and went to the door. Tae was there, and when he said he was ready, Lain grinned. He wore his shoes as well, and told Tae, "I'll drive us."

It was a short drive and Lain played some mellow songs in the car until they arrived.

Prince Comics looked like a small establishment from the outside, but it was long on the inside, with endless shelves. Well, not endless, but Lain liked to think of it that way. "They have a huge collection so if there's anything specific you're searching for, you can ask the proprietor," Lain told Tae, as they entered the shop.

The proprietor was called Prince by everyone although that definitely couldn't have been his real name. "How may I help you?" he smiled from behind the counter, and then he did a double take and said, "Lain. You didn't drop by for ages."

"Had a day off today," said Lain.

"You brought a friend," said Prince, switching his smile to include Tae.

"Yeah. This is Tae," said Lain. He turned to Tae and said, "I'm going to go browse some manhwa. You can come with me if you'd like to look at those, but if you're looking for novels or something else, Prince will go with you to show you where to find those. Whenever we find something we want to read, maybe we can come back to that corner with the beanbags," said Lain, pointing. There was a clump of beanbags as well as stools and a chair or two.

Tae followed Lain out of the door and into the car. The music Lain played was nice. Not what he usually listened to, but still great. They walked inside and Tae took it all in. It was a nice place and it seemed to have a lot of different things. Tae nodded as Lain said he could always ask the owner if he needed help finding something.

The owner greeted them and recognized Lain. He greeted Tae next. "Hi." Tae gave a small bow. Lain knew exactly what he wanted to look at. Tae wasn't as sure. "I think I'm just gonna look around for a bit first." He added after a moment. He wanted to see what they had before looking at a specific type of book.

Prince said, "Feel free to explore as much as you like! And if you ever need me, I'll be here."

Lain nodded to Tae. "Cool. This is a fun place to explore when you like reading. See you soon!"

Lain went straight for the manhwa shelves. There were some titles he'd never be interested in, but many lined up with what he usually liked to read. There was one about a guy who is reincarnated as the villain of his favourite manhwa. Lain liked meta stories so he was definitely borrowing that. It looked like there would be a lot of scheming in it, and that was always interesting.

Lain also found a fantasy series about demons infiltrating the human world, some chill slice-of-life single-volume stories, and some BL. He took a stack of these to the reading corner and sank into a beanbag. He hoped he could talk about these stories to Tae, and Tae could talk about what he was reading too. Even if their reading tastes were very different, hearing about a book or a show from someone who enjoyed it was always enjoyable because they enjoyed it.