I know this is going to sound like a love story, but if it is, I have yet to find out. 

Nothing could have prepared me for it. I was young and naïve, clueless. I didn’t know anything about love, except for what I had seen in movies. Unfortunately, I had always skipped the sad ones.
 

You never noticed, but I knew it right away. We were nervous, excited and worried, but hopeful enough to keep pushing. You were given a terrible weight and you, small, hardly more than a child, took it on your shoulders, proud and wonderful, and I vowed to give my best, to try to help you as much as you let me. It wasn’t much, but you never complained, not even once.

We were nervous, excited and worried, and you promised to guide us, even if you didn’t know where we were heading yourself. You weren’t that much older, Jonghyun, but you had the kind of strength I wished I could have. “We’ll make it,” you said, proud and wonderful, and upon seeing the sunset in your eyes, I knew my life would end at the curve of your smile.
 

You never noticed, because I’m good at keeping secrets, and, Jonghyun, you’re so clueless. I still believe you’re the only one who hasn’t realized. It’s been around for as long as I can remember, since day one. It’s on the crowd and in the dorm, and even a little piece has flown back to China. It’s as clear as glass to everyone –to everyone but you.

I know it’s a game to you, and that’s what hurts the most. When you stumble in the room, lights long out and your steps sloppy, fatigued, it’s so easy to grab you and yank you closer, make you lose balance. And you let me, because you know I’ll always catch you. 

Every morning, I wake up thinking that this is it; this is the last time, because I need to get over it and help myself. But I can’t and that’s exactly the issue: I can’t help myself. When you stumble in the room, lights long out and your steps sloppy, it’s only natural for me to grab you and yank you closer, and I secretly enjoy your weight crushing my ribs even if you laugh and say you’re sorry, if I tell you whatever, just sleep, we need to get up early tomorrow. I secretly enjoy the mixed scent of toothpaste and your shampoo being the last thing I sense before I fall asleep with you in my arms. I don’t even mind that your damp hair s up my pillow, even when it’s just been dyed and it leaves an eggplant-colored stain with the exact shape of your head stamped permanently on my brand new pillowcase. In any case, it only reminds me of the reason your crown dampens my chin, showering last even though you’re the fastest just so we can scrap an extra half an hour of sleep. You always put others first, and when the thought crosses my mind again, I hold you closer.

You always see the best in people, and that’s the reason I’m surprised you haven’t found out yet: it would be as easy as looking in the mirror. 

To this day, you’re still the best in me.
 

I’ve been careful not to trick myself into believing you could feel the same way I do. It’s been hard, Jonghyun, I’m not going to lie this time. It’s been tough. At times, you almost deceived me.

It’s particularly hard when it feels like time hasn’t gone by, when we, again, feel young, and naïve, excited and hopeful; when we allow ourselves to rewind. When we’re back in the practice room, a little lost, and you catch my eyes in the mirror and you smile at me, and, Jonghyun, how I wish you did feel the same way I do. 

However, it’s not that hard when she’s around. At least for that, I guess I should be thankful. 
 

When you met her, you came straight to me. I was delighted, Jonghyun; I rejoiced in knowing it was me you came to when something was shaking you. You’re always so quiet, so proud and wonderful, and sometimes I feel like I’ll never get to know what’s really running through your mind. It scares me to push you. I always feel like it’s only going to make you retreat more. I stayed in place, impatient, patient, all at once. I waited for you, and I was rewarded with the trust I had been craving. 

You were flushed and giddy, and, Jonghyun, you looked so beautiful. Sometimes, it physically hurts to look at you, but I think that was the first time I was thoroughly conscious of that. 

I would lie if I said I wasn’t happy for you, but I would also lie if I said I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I had been meticulously careful not to trick myself into believing you could feel the same way I do, but I suppose, deep down, the hope never dies. It always lingers, and its trail is more poisonous than one would think. 

When you stumbled in the room, lights long out and your steps sloppy, fatigued, I’d still grab you and yank you closer, because no one in the world could keep me from the pleasure of having your weight crush my ribs and your laugh echo against my skin. The only thing that changed wasn’t visible, but within you.

I had to ask, even if I didn’t want to know the answer. I had to ask because I knew you needed it, and, in a way, I think I needed it, too. It was surreal; I never thought I would be whispering these words to you out of all people, while your hair was still damp and your heart ricocheted in your chest at the thought of her. “Do you love her?” I ask, and you keep quiet. That’s the only answer I need, but it’s not enough for you. It’s all new and you’re flushed and giddy, and, Jonghyun, you look so beautiful. “I do,” you murmur back, and I swear to you, I don’t breathe for a whole minute. You do, I hear it, and in that moment (and in that moment only) do I realize how heavy your chest was before you said it. You needed me to ask in order to say it, to let go of the weight, and now you’re so light that it feels like you could float away any second. 

I hold you closer. I’m afraid, and I’m not proud to say this, but I don’t fear for you. I know you can make it, but I’m not so sure I will. I don’t know how you think about us, Jonghyun, if you do at all, but it’s always been clear to me that you exert on me some kind of magnetic force. And for a moment (and this is what scares me the most), I’m afraid that as you float away, that force is being inversed and I am, instead, being dragged down. It hurts to look at you, Jonghyun. I wish it didn’t, but it does.

I would lie if I said I wasn’t happy for you, but I would also lie if I didn’t say that nothing in this world could do to me what you did with those two words.
 

Alcohol does ugly things to me.

You’re the only one who hasn’t realized. They live with me the same way you do, but they can see the half-moons my nails draw on my palms when I start to think I’m going to shout it at you. You don’t see it. You never do.

I know it’s no solution. I know I’m going to regret it in the morning, but by the time the sun sets, consequences cease to matter. It burns down my throat but it numbs my conscience, and that, Jonghyun, helps more than any sincere advice ever could. 

I met him when he was nervous, excited and worried, and he, poor fool, thought I had my together. He didn’t know what he was getting himself into. Looking back, I should have warned him, but in my defense, I didn’t know where I was, either. 

He gave me the comfort I wanted; I had gotten to a point where the place it came from didn’t matter. He was too tall and his hair was too long, and he was pretty but it didn’t hurt to look at him. I kept my eyes closed and his fingertips found their way to my ribcage. My heart raced, and I had never felt so dirty. He didn’t know –he couldn’t know, and he didn’t deserve it.

I'm not proud to say this, but I let myself imagine he was you.
 

It’s the last thing I want to do, but I pull away.

I need this, I tell myself, pointedly ignoring your eyes in the mirror. I know there are things I can’t avoid, but I’m not paid to be your friend. You have a shoulder to lean on and I have nothing, and I know this is the biggest cliché, Jonghyun, but I don’t want anything if it’s not you. 

I go shut at the same time the camera does, and no one realizes. You don’t notice, either. You never do. It feels as if I were dying, a little. It hurts to look at you, but that’s not what I mean.

I pull away from you and I pull away from myself, from the best of me. I’m not proud to say this, but I manage to convince myself that it is your fault, that you were asking for it, and no amount of reasoning can persuade me otherwise.

Truth is, Jonghyun, that hating you is easier than missing you.
 

I never thought it’d last long, because ever since I met you, I have orbited around you. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that you noticed. I hadn’t been fair to you, Jonghyun, because although you didn’t notice everything, you noticed something, even if it was only at its absence. 

It was cold, Jonghyun, almost unbearably so, but the needles that prickled my palms from the inside against that stupid mug weren’t painful enough to force me to go back inside. It didn’t hurt as much as looking at you did.

Naturally, I didn’t see you wrap yourself in the spare blanket, making sure to tuck it around your neck properly, because you couldn’t afford a sore throat. You were simultaneously the last thing I wanted to see and what I wanted to see the most, and the contradiction was enough to lead me to secluding myself as far away from you as humanly possible. 

I was still hoping it’d someone else –anyone else– when you sat right next to me, so close that I could feel the heat emanating from you like a radiator. I was sure if I extended my hand a little and placed it on your cheek, just barely, I’d feel the needles the same way I did with my mug.

“I miss you,” you said after a while and out of nowhere, and I swear to you, Jonghyun, it broke me in half. 

I laughed, short, bitter. “I miss you, too,” I confessed. It didn’t seem like a big deal, but you could never know how much of a defeat that one phrase represented for me.

I didn’t look at you; I couldn’t. My eyes were fixed somewhere at the front, registering everything and nothing, but more than anything, avoiding yours. Your knee nudged mine, and the sensation was foreign and familiar all the same, and I bet I could have cried if not because we were below-zero and any tears I could have shed had already solidified in the pit of my stomach. 

When I finally looked your way, I had to struggle to keep my heartbeat steady. It’d been a while since the last time I’d allowed myself to look at you, to really look at you, and, Jonghyun, it so bad to find out that despite all my efforts, nothing had changed. 

“Is it something that I’ve done?” you ask, innocent and wonderful, and, Jonghyun, so, so beautiful. 

“No,” I say, and it’s only because you’re so close that you can hear me. I take a sip from my drink knowing that it’s going to be cold, but it helps push down the lump on my throat. “It’s just me.”

You nod, as if you knew what I’m talking about. As if you knew! 

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Your voice is high and low and quiet and loud, so loud in my head. It rings in my ears and it laughs at me, and I almost laugh, too. 

But you look concerned and nothing has changed, and I want nothing but to make things as easy for you as I can. So I nod and let you think you have nothing to do with this, because I’m afraid of what I could say or do if I open my mouth. 

You raise your arm and put it around me, and your blanket wraps around us in the way I wish your heart would. You’re so warm, Jonghyun; you’ve always been. I hunch, I cower, I try; but eventually my head finds its rightful place in the crook of your shoulder. 

We fit so well, Jonghyun. Why do you keep doing this to me?
 

I’ve heard before (and I’m sure you have, too) that love always finds a way. I used to think it was bull, because sometimes things just don’t work out and there’s nothing you can do about it, but I think now I understand. We were reading it wrong.

Love doesn’t always find a way to work out in the how you want it to, but how you need it to. 

A one sided love is sad, but also kind of wonderful. Maybe even a bit special. I know it’s hard to believe, but you still make me happy, at least in the way that the memories from my childhood do. I know you’re out of my reach, yet, in a way, I can always come back to you. Your arm is always raised with the spare blanket waiting for me, and you don’t know, you will never know, how much of a blessing that is to me. I don’t blame you. You always see the best in people, but –and forgive me if it took me too long to figure it out– it’s harder for you to see the best in yourself. I hope one day you’ll see it, and maybe then, you’ll know.

Love will always find a way, after all. In my case, it seems that the destination is always you. 
 

I’ve written you a hundred messages that I’ll never send. I fear and I am ashamed; ashamed not of loving you, but of how badly I have handled it. It still hurts to look at you, and deep down, I think it always will. I can’t promise I’ll get better at it, but I promise you I will try.

You rewrote time and space for me, and for that, I will forever be thankful. 

I have written you a hundred messages that I’ll never send, and this, Jonghyun, is the last one of them. 
 

__________________________________

a/n: again, srry. i know at least one person will want to punch me in the face. 
writing style is highly influenced by why we broke up by daniel handler bc i love it. not trying to copy it, but ya know, giving it a go.
aaalso in case you didnt realize or didnt read the info, minki is the narrator and the guy he hooked up with was junghan. happy birthday angelhan heres u making out with ur bae u go boy u go
okay i think thats it
sorry again
lol
ps: soundtrack for this fic was I really want you by James Blunt. if you havent, give it a listen bc i love it its one of my favorites ever
pss: as per usual, you can always head over to my LJ for the rest of my fics [ http://atomickitten03.livejournal.com/ ]
psss: thank you for reading <3