OUUHH good question.. i think he overcompensates at first, like tries extra hard to be a good partner and puts in maybe a bit too much effort and its painfully obvious. so sungho sits him down and is like... you can chill out you know you don't have to do all this. and taesan tries to argue that he's trying to make up for lost time and his mistakes and sungho tells him it's fine, they have plenty of time together and he doesn't have to, which helps him relax a bit.

and like i said in a previous question taesan starts going to therapy YAYYY so he has a good outside outlet for his feelings where he can voice his worries and anxieties without feeling like he's burdening the people he's close to. it's awkward and scary at first but he sticks to it and it helps.

he also tries to be more open with sungho, so whenever he starts feeling that anxiety that he doesn't deserve this and shouldn't be allowed to be happy, he'll tell sungho instead of keeping it locked up until it boils over, even if it's hard, and sungho will quiet him and reassure him and they'll take the time to do something together, especially after they move in together.

oh definitely. from everybody. jaehyun supports them because above everything he wants taesan to be happy and he knows that sungho can do that because he's seen them together and it's honestly the most at peace he's ever seen taesan. he also feels partly to blame for them breaking up so he almost encourages them getting back together.

riwoo... not so much. it's not that he dislikes taesan. he doesn't think badly of him because he knows taesan has his own issues. he's just worried for sungho because he knows how much he hurt and he's scared of it happening again. he doesn't try to dissuade sungho because he's an adult and can make his own adult decisions but he does voice his skepticism in the way that he only wants the best for sungho. sungho listens to him and thinks about it a lot.

woonhak outright tells taesan "do not fuck it up again" because he has no filter and knows everything even when taesan has been trying to hide it from him.

also thought about this a lot sooo taesan has a part time job as a server in a restaurant because unfortunately you can never fully escape capitalism and shitty jobs and he still needs to make a living somehow. it's stressful and he hates it but he gets to bring home food sometimes and sungho is always there to pick him up after a bad shift.

but!! he's also started freelance producing online from home and he's currently looking into bigger offers and deals. also, with sungho's encouragement, he does a little busking and small gigs on the side which he's initially terrified of but gets more into it the more he does it.

sungho has a nice office job as part of the design team for building planning, which pays decent and he has a lot of chance for overtime (which he tries not to take because he has a very lonely boyfriend waiting for him back at home). he is very very supportive of taesan's music career and tells him several times that if he wants to quit his service job and spend all his effort on music that's okay. taesan won't because he's stubborn and refuses to be a liability but he appreciates it immensely.

sooo taesan gets in touch with sungho first after the whole proposal thing and he asks if they can meet up to talk. they go to the same cafe they went to the first time they spent time together just the two of them and they sit down and have a very very long conversation about everything.

taesan apologises, straight up, he doesn't try to get pity or explain why he's not a bad person because he knows what he did was shitty and he has no excuse for that. he tries to explain his reasons, again not to try and redeem himself just because he feels like he owes sungho an explanation. sungho listens and honestly it's maybe the first time taesan has opened up to him so wholly, bared all his feelings to him so vulnerably. they've talked before, yes, discussed touchy topics and the likes but never in so much depth and sungho can see that taesan is really trying, that he's working past all his inhibitions and fear of judgement to try and explain things to sungho and he appreciates it.

like don't get me wrong sungho does rip him a new one and tell him that yeah disappearing on him like that was fucked up and he did not deserve to be treated that way and taesan should feel guilty about that, but the thing about sungho is that he's always been understanding to a fault. he gets it because his own first relationship ended because he freaked out and quit out of it before it could get serious because he wasn't ready or comfortable with himself. so at least a little he knows where taesan is coming from and he wants to be able to be there for him like no one was here for him when he went through the same thing.

does not excuse taesan's actions and sungho tells him flat out that taesan hurt him badly and that's why they don't get together again right away because they take the time to rebuild and relearn each other and put their relationship in a new context.

THEY'RE SO SPECIAL TO MEEEE i love them so badly. taesan who is trying to be better so that woonhak doesn't have to see him hurting and woonhak who knows it anyway but doesn't say anything because he wants taesan to feel like he's doing something good. woonhak seeing taesan and jaehyun as the older brothers he never had and taesan and jaehyun seeing woonhak as the younger brother they never had. i really think they shaped him as a person growing up and woonhak's dad gives them part of the credit for helping him raise woonhak.

and also woonhak's dad seeing taesan partly as another son too, though they're both too stubborn and reluctant with their feelings to admit out loud they have a familial bond between them, they feel it all the the same.

leehan's family lives in the city but he's always yearned for a quieter life ever since they started taking vacations down to little beach towns, which is also where his fascination with the ocean grew. he's interested in marine biology and conservation and is looking into college courses for it where he can spend a lot of time doing field studies. he's barely seventeen when he meets taesan at the music store, and they're kind of opposites in a lot of ways? leehan has big dreams with a quiet life in mind while taesan doesn't really dream of anything but wants to escape. after the vacation and when taesan doesn't call him back he goes to college and gets the life he dreamed of. i like to think they run into each other again one day, maybe when taesan and sungho are taking one of the trips they talked about :)

also fun fact: i was going to bring leehan back into the fic in the second chapter and he was going to be what sungho ended up being BUT i ended up decided to keep him as a temporary vacation thing because i wanted to keep the idea of lost chances that he can never get back and the regret that comes with them that helps him take new chances :3

he buries himself in work, mostly. it's the last semester of his final year so he drowns himself in studying and exams and overworking himself to the point he doesn't really have time to think about it anymore. he starts looking for post-graduate jobs and putting together a portfolio of his work and applying to places too. he also talks to riwoo a lot, because they've been best friends since their first year at college and riwoo was there through his first horrible painful breakup too. he distances himself from jaehyun a little, not because he doesn't like him or he blames him, but because jaehyun is taesan's best friend and he doesn't want to burden him any further, put him in an awkward place or make him feel like he needs to choose between them. if taesan is a denier of his feelings then sungho is a represser lmaoo

sooo he never talks about it with jaehyun because not talking about problems has always been their Thing and a lot of things have changed for the better but they're still not perfect. taesan thinks jaehyun doesn't remember and it's too late now, that it might ruin the peace that jaehyun has created with riwoo and he also doesn't want to rip that wound open for himself again. jaehyun Does in fact remember and he already talked about it with riwoo because communication is a very important part of their relationship (something he could never get quite right with taesan). but i do think taesan talks about it with sungho and it helps sungho understand a bit better everything that taesan did because yeah that's kinda fucked up. and also one of the conditions of them getting back together and moving in together is sungho wanting taesan to go to therapy YAYYY so he works through it. um anyway sorry for the long ass answer i think about it a lot 🥹